This marvellous piece of portraiture dates from the year 1523. Holbein painted many portraits of his friend and patron, and at least three belong to this year, one being at Longford Castle. A study for the one reproduced here may be seen in the Basle Museum. The great scholar is treated with a master-hand. Pallid skin, greying hair, dark clothes, and brown panelling go to the making of wonderful colour harmony.
If we cannot say with any certainty why Holbein came to England, we may at least presume that Sir Thomas More was his earliest patron in these islands, and his famous "Household of Sir Thomas More" would seem to have been the first intimation to a considerable section of English art lovers that a new light had arisen. It was of course most fortunate for the painter that he could command the attention of the highest in the land with his first serious effort, for the future was at once assured; and if it was well for the painter, it is better still for us. How many notable men has he rescued from the comparative oblivion of the printed record? In how many cases has he helped us to correct or justify the impressions of the historian? The human face tells its own story, and, when it is set down by a master-hand, we know something at least of the brain that worked behind it. Holbein was a realist. It was no part of his artistic intention to make a portrait a mere beautiful picture, to treat his subject pictorially in fashion that would flatter a sitter's vanity. Perhaps he had not the dangerous quality of imagination that would make such a procedure possible. He saw clearly, fully, dispassionately, and set down on paper or canvas just what he had seen--neither more nor less. Even the Renaissance decorations that had delighted him as a boy were laid aside long before he came from Basle to London, and such mere cleverness as he permitted himself was done obviously enough to attract custom, and was to be seen in the skilful composition of his portrait groups. He was a hard-headed, serious artist, and appealed to a singularly level-headed generation, that had not been educated up or down to the special genius of the Renaissance portrait painters of Italy. For in spite of the exquisite and well-nigh inimitable quality of the Italian masters, their work would have seemed rather exotic in our colder clime. Moreover, the days of revolt against the spirit that so many of them expressed were upon the land.