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- [00:00]
A
Hello, I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb. If you'd like Not Just the Tudors ad free to get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to historyhit with a historyhit subscription. You can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my own recent two part series A World Torn, the Dissolution of the Monasteries and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com forward/subscribe.
- [00:32]
B
Grief doesn't keep a calendar. Anxiety doesn't clock out after five. Depression doesn't care if it's your busy season, but support can still fit into your life. With Grow, you can find a therapist who meets you where you are. They connect you with thousands of independent licensed therapists across the US offering both virtual and in person sessions. You can search by insurance provider, specialty treatment methods and more to find a therapist who works for you. And if it's not the right fit, switching is easy. There are no subscriptions, no long term commitments. You just pay per session. Find therapy on your time, evenings, weekends, and Cancel up to 24 hours in advance at no cost. Whatever challenges you're facing, Grow Therapy is here to help. Sessions average about $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. Visit growtherapy.com acast today to get started. That's growtherapy.com acast growtherapy.com acast availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.
- [01:45]
A
Hello, I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb and welcome to Not Just the Tutors from History Hit, the podcast in which we explore everything from and Berlin to the Aztecs, from Holbein to the Huguenots, from Shakespeare to samurais, relieved by regular doses of murder, espionage and witchcraft. Not, in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors. I want you to close your eyes, unless of course you're driving a car, and picture the world of the Tudors. The bulging figure of Henry VIII and his glittering court, their fine, sumptuous clothing, their smooth, engaged countenances. Now ask yourself, how do we know what that world looked like? The answer, I think, lies with one man. Hans Holbein. Holbein wasn't just a painter. He was an artist of many dimensions. But he was also a visual storyteller and a master who gave faces to the names that shaped our history. These are not just likenesses. They are politics, propaganda and power, preserved forever on wood and vellum. Thanks to the realism of Holbein's portraits, we imagine we encounter not only the faces, but the inner workings of the minds of Men and women who lived, breathed and schemed. We feel we can witness their authority and ambition, their pride and their fears, all captured so vividly, so immediately, that they seem to collapse the five centuries between us. In previous episodes of Not Just the Tudors, I've explored Hans Holbein's early years, his life in the Tudor court, and even toured an exhibition of his portraits at Buckingham Palace. Do go back again and take a listen to those episodes. But today I'm thrilled to be finding out about the recent groundbreaking discoveries that are revolutionizing how we understand Tudor Court's most famous portraitist. I'm delighted to welcome back Dr. Elizabeth Goldring in her latest book, Holbein, Renaissance Master. Dr. Goldring has taken her investigative skills to an entirely new level, drawing on recent research and cutting edge scientific analysis to unlock the secrets hidden in Holbein's paint and chalk. Using state of the art technology, Elizabeth reveals Holbein's working methods with unprecedented precision. Beneath those pristine surfaces lies evidence of lost colours, hidden alterations and sophisticated painting techniques that demonstrate just how brilliant Holbein truly was. More than that, her research fundamentally revises our understanding of Holbein as not just a great portraitist, but as an innovative entrepreneur who helped create the modern art market, pivoting from medieval workshop practices to artistic entrepreneurship. In brief, we are about to discover that Holbein was a far more complex and fascinating figure than we previously realized. I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb and you're listening to Not Just the Tudors from History Hit. Elizabeth, it's lovely to see you.
- [04:52]
C
Thank you for having me back.
- [04:54]
A
Congratulations on this new biography. But the challenge, of course, one has to put to anyone writing about such a famous figure is why the need for a new biography of Holbein and why now?
- [05:06]
C
Absolutely. It's an excellent question. Well, they're both excellent questions. I think. Holbein has been at the back of my mind since the beginning of my career. My first art history publication, which was in 2002, was a short piece in the Burlington Magazine on Christina of Denmark. And in a way, this feels like a project that is a real full circle moment for me. I was struck when I was writing my book on Robert Dudley and trying to reconstruct his picture collection at the Elizabethan court, which came out in 2014, that Dudley must have been influenced to some extent by models of patron courtiers, patron collectors from the court of Henry viii. And I was very much aware when I was writing the book on Dudley that there wasn't really anywhere I could go to to find out more about, say, Thomas More or Thomas Cromwell as patrons of the arts, collectors of paintings. Even though reading between the lines of other studies, it seemed clear that there was no doubt that they had been important patrons of the arts and indeed important patrons of Holbein. But there was no one place to go for all of that information. Similarly, when I was writing my book on Nicholas Hilliard, which came out in 2019, and Hilliard, of course, idolized Holbein, saw Holbein in many ways as a role model, I was surprised to discover that the most recent scholarly biography of Holbein was more than 100 years old, published in 1913, and inevitably dated in some respects. And so I suppose those experiences collectively planted various seeds, which made me think, when I finished, perhaps the time was ripe for a new scholarly biography of Holbein, something that would bring together new archival discoveries, but also try to knit those together with the latest scientific and technical discoveries. Obviously, things have moved on inevitably since 1913, when A.B. chamberlain published the last scholarly biography of Holbein. His work was a remarkable, absolutely extraordinary publication for its day, complete with sepia tinted illustrations, but inevitably has been superseded in many respects. And so it was really an attempt to fill in some of the gaps, find answers to some of the questions that I wanted answers to when I was writing my Dudley book or when I was writing my Hilliard book, that prompted me to look into the possibility of writing a new biography of Holbein.
- [07:43]
A
Now, you've mentioned that your research is. Incorporates the latest scientific and technical analysis. Did you have a lot of eureka moments along the way?
- [07:55]
C
Yes. I mean, first of all, I think we should clarify. I wasn't the one personally X raying the paintings or conducting dendrochronological researches. I'm very much reliant on the findings of others in these fields. But what has often struck me is that often the scientific and technical analysis of paintings, and this doesn't apply just to Holbein, it's a broader observation, seems to happen in isolation from the art historical side of things. So I really wanted to try to marry up these two streams of research, something I had tried to do with my Hilliard book as well, but which seemed even more right for the doing with Holbein. Because the advances in the scientific and technical study of. Of paintings and other works of art is just growing by leaps and bounds from one year to the next. And obviously to a certain extent, one is limited by, you know, there's a certain element of chance involved in which paintings, which works of Arts happen to have been subjected to recent technical analyses. Obviously, in an ideal world, one would have all the extant works by Holbein X rayed and given the infrared treatments and so on and so forth. But of course, that isn't quite how the world works. So one is slightly limited by what examinations happen to have been undertaken. But happily, many, many examinations have been undertaken in recent years by major museums and also by some private collectors. So really very exciting, and for me, part of a larger effort to try to look at Holbein's works of art with fresh eyes. I think that so many of them are so familiar to us now that it's difficult to remember how novel they must have seemed, how revolutionary they must have seemed to their first viewers. So this was all part of an attempt for me to kind of try to recapture what impact these works of art must have had on their first viewers, and also to try to get one's head back into the mindset of what they must originally have looked like. So pigments, of course, can fade. So smalt, which is a relatively inexpensive blue pigment, will degrade over time and go a kind of muddy brown or grey. So sometimes you've got to take an imaginative leap when looking at paintings which now have a rather dark, muddy gray brown background. If you know that they were painted with smalt originally, that would have been a brilliant blue background. And similarly with drawings, sometimes top layers have been abraded and have been rubbed away. So again, sometimes you're having to IM things that are no longer there that once would have been there. Something that I say throughout the book is that I went to try to encourage readers to take that imaginative leap. And often the science and the technological discoveries help us to do that, to get closer back to what these works of art looked like when Holbein finished them. And of course, by being able to look beneath the surface of the paint to see changes. Pentimenti being the art historical term, literally, it means regrets, but it is used to refer to changes made during the initial phase of the creative process. So these are not changes that are made a few years down the line. These are changes whilst you're in that sort of initial creative phase. And, you know, it's very interesting. One gets a real feel for Holbein, the perfectionist Holbein in dialogue with so certain patrons, some of whom seem to have been perfectionists themselves. So, yes, it's really a very exciting way, I think, of trying to get closer to the creative process and try to get inside the mindset. Of what Holbein and his patrons were attempting to achieve.
- [12:00]
A
And interestingly, one important discovery is that Holbein was left handed. What difference did that make to the way he worked?
- [12:07]
C
Well, absolutely. I mean, I certainly wasn't the first to discover that he was left handed, but one of the things that I tried to do in one of my early chapters, which looks at Holbein's childhood in Augsburg, was to think about what that must have been like, what the discovery on the part of his father, who was a well known and successful sacred painter in Augsburg, who no doubt hoped that his two sons would follow in his footsteps and one day join his workshop. What Hans the Elder's thoughts might have been upon discovering that his younger son was left handed. We know that south of the Alps, many Italian Renaissance artists who were left handed were forced as children to learn to use the right hand instead. Leonardo may have trained himself to be ambidextrous, though there's some debate about that. But one thing that struck me as very interesting about the German context is that we know that at least amongst late medieval German scribes, there was a certain pride in being left handed if the work produced was greater to or better than that produced by a right handed scribe. So there are a lot of examples of left handed German scribes in the late medieval period championing this fact in the margins. And so I speculate perhaps a similar mindset applied. We don't know. More broadly amongst German craftsmen and artisans, there seems to be ample evidence that Hans the Elder was extremely proud of his younger son and namesake and well aware of his talent from a young age. Hans the Elder, who as I mentioned, specialized in sacred paintings, would use the faces of his two sons, Ambrosius and Hans the Younger, for various characters in some of the religious narratives. And the young Hans often seems to have had a starring role in these narrative scenes. And in fact in one seems to be holding in his left hand at the age of perhaps six or seven, something that looks a bit like possibly an oversized paintbrush. And his father is looking at him adoringly and Hans elder brother Ambrosius is pointing to him. And, you know, there does seem to be a sense in which he was seen as special, as talented from a young age, that the left handedness was seen as possibly also something special and certainly not something that was holding him back.
- [14:44]
A
So you've given us a sense of his early environment in Augsburg in Germany. He's born around 1497, 98 into this family of artists. Where did he learn his technical Precision?
- [14:59]
C
Well, we don't know for certain, but the assumption, and I don't think there's any reason to doubt this, is that his initial training would primarily have been from his father. That would have been the standard practice, that these skills would have been passed down the generations from father to son. And certainly many of Holbein and Hans the Younger. Let's just assume, if I say Holbein, that I mean Hans the Younger. Certainly many of Holbein's practices as an adult mirror those of his father. So the practice of saving portrait drawings and annotating them and carefully filing them away for future reference, that's something that his father did. And we can assume that he learned from his father. And there are many, many other examples of ways in which he seems to have learned at his father's side. Though that's obviously not to rule out the possibility that there may have been other influences. Augsburg was a real crossroads at this period. A lot of important artists passed through. Hans Borkmeyer was another very important local artist who may have been an influence on Holbein. Certainly, I think we can assume that the Burkmayers and the Holbeins would have been well acquainted. So there are a lot of question marks over Holbein's early years, but certainly I think his father would have been a very important influence on his training as a painter and draftsman.
- [16:25]
A
Just a quick question here on names. You know, for years I've referred to him as Hans Holbein, but you're suggesting Hans, is it just I've been parochial and used a very English pronunciation.
- [16:36]
C
Well, it may just be my pronunciation, but. And actually, strictly it's Johannes, which thinks, seems then to be abbreviated within the family to Hans. There's a lovely drawing by Holbein, the elder of his two sons in their early teens, which he annotated with their names and ages. And so his elder son, Ambrosius, that image is annotated Brosi, and the image of his younger son is annotated Hans. So I think that's a lovely, intimate insight into the family dynamic. And Hans doesn't sound quite as intimate as Brosie. But, you know, seeing Brosie on the drawing in Hans the Elder's hand is, I think, one of those moments where you feel you are almost traveling through time and sort of hearing the spoken vernacular of these historic figures. So, yes, I think, really very thrilling. Even though we don't have letters or diaries that survive, I think that these drawings are often a real portal into the world that the figures inhabited.
- [17:43]
A
So we know that the family dispersed to other countries. Why did that happen?
- [17:50]
C
Yes. So in about 1510 or thereabouts, there seems to be a marked downturn in Hans the Elder's fortunes in Augsburg. Looking at tax ledgers, there is a dramatic drop off in his income from about 1510 onwards, and it's not entirely clear what happens at that point. There do seem to be some shifts in style. There is more of an appetite for an Italianate style of painting that was not what he was used to. But that doesn't seem to entirely explain what goes wrong for Hans the Elder. I don't know if he becomes perhaps ill at that point. His wife disappears from the historical record around this time. Perhaps she dies. It would not have been uncommon for her to have performed a role as manager, an accountant, within her husband's workshop. So if she dies, perhaps that throws a spanner into the works. But in any case, whatever happens, Hans the Elder's fortunes take a turn for the worse in about 1510. His younger brother, who had been a member of the workshop, leaves for Alsace and eventually makes his way to Bern in Switzerland. At some point, Ambrosius and Hans the younger Holbein also leave Augsburg. They certainly still seem to be in Augsburg as of about 1512, and we can place them in Basel by late 1515. But at some point between 1512 and 1515, they leave. It's not clear if they leave together at the same time. We don't know if Basel is always their intended destination or if that's just where they end up by chance. We don't know if they pause en route to Basel and have adventures and sojourns in other towns and cities along the way. Once again, there are a lot of question marks, but historically, I think there has been a tendency to assume that with sort of reading backwards, with the benefit of knowing how things work out, that Basel was always the intended destination and that they make a beeline for Basel when they leave Augsburg. And I don't think there is, in fact, any evidence to support that. I think it's probably worth being open to the possibility that they end up in Basel more or less by chance. But in any case, Ambrosius and Hans the Younger Holbein are in Basel by December 1515 and making their way in a new city.
- [20:28]
A
And how important was the experience of being in Basel in terms of Holbein's development? Do we have a sense of. Of the impression it had on him artistically? And, of course, the exposure to humanist ideas, particularly those of Erasmus?
- [20:43]
C
Absolutely. Well, it's again a real stroke of luck and one of these twists of fate that ended up having such dramatic impact and setting Holbein on a particular path. But by chance he and Ambrosius end up embald about the time that Erasmus, the great humanist of the age, leaves England after many years to make his home in Basel, with a view towards collaborating with Johannes Froben of the famous Froben Press on new editions of various of Erasmus works. And Holbein soon finds himself in Frobin's orbit, in Erasmus orbit. And that really sets him on a path that will eventually lead him to England in a way that I don't think would have happened in, if he had remained in Augsburg. Augsburg was a very cosmopolitan city and thanks to the Fugger family and their mercantile empire, there were certainly links, trade links between Augsburg and London. But in Basel, thanks to Erasmus, there was a direct line to the heart of the Tudor court, which I don't think would have existed had Holbein remained in Augsburg. Wouldn't have been a route open to him had he remained in Augsburg. So as so often, I think in the story of Holbein's life there is an incredible element of chance to Holbein just happening to be in the right place at the right time. Of course he's incredibly talented and seems to have been very driven and absolute workaholic in, to use modern terminology. But again, luck does seem to have played a part.
- [22:24]
A
And perhaps on the way to England we know that he travels too to France. What impact did that have on him?
- [22:31]
C
Absolutely. So in 1524 Holbein is sent to France actually by Erasmus. The previous year Holbein painted Erasmus portrait. He created in 1523 two portrait types for Erasmus. It was a gig that he got really only because Durer let Erasmus down. Erasmus was nothing if not a name dropper and a snob. And I don't think Erasmus would have hired Holbein if Durer hadn't left him in the lurch. Holbein, when he got this commission from Erasmus, was not a name that was known outside of Basel and the immediately surrounding German speaking lands. But Erasmus was a bit desperate because Durer had been working on this commission for two or three years at this point and there was no sign that it was ever going to materialize. So in 1523 Holbein created two templates for Erasmus. One of which I for convenience refer to in the book as the thinking type because it shows Erasmus looking very contemplative. The other I refer to, for convenience in the book as the writing type, because it shows Erasmus in profile writing. One example of the thinking type survives today. Two examples of the writing type. But I think it's very clear from documentary evidence, and indeed visual evidence as well, that Holbein would have produced many, many more examples of both types for Erasmus in 1523 and the years immediately after for circulation to Erasmus, wide range of humanist friends who were far flung and spread out on the continent. And so it was in the course of delivering one of these portraits, an example of the writing type, to the French court, that Holbein spent some time in France in 1524. Erasmus was hoping for preferment at either the French or the English court. So he sent two portraits of himself by Holbein to England. We don't know who delivered those, and he asked Holbein to personally deliver one to the French court. And so Holbein spends perhaps six months in France. We don't know exactly how long and we don't know exactly where he went or what he did. But I think one thing we can say with certainty about Holbein's time in France in 1524 is that he comes into contact almost certainly with works by Leonardo and Leonardo's followers. Just to remind listeners, Leonardo spent the last few years of his life in the service of the French king. Leonardo dies in France in 1519. I think he had been at the French court from 1516 or thereabouts. And Holbein must see many, many examples of Leonardo's work and the work of followers and imitators, because when he goes back to Basel in 1525, suddenly he is producing lots and lots of paintings that evoke Leonardo. He does the Last Supper, which seems to be inspired by Leonardo's. He's using the sfumato technique that Leonardo pioneered where colors transition without. Well, without sharp transitions. So his Laius Corinthiaca, which is inscribed with the date of 1526 and is painted in Basel, is very Leonardo esque in terms of showing a beautiful woman behind a parapet wall and the colors blended in this sfumato method. So, so, interestingly, I think this is an example of one of many ways in which Holbein is, throughout his life, very alive to new influences, almost like a sponge soaking up new ideas and new influences and always looking for something different. And so unlike many painters in Basel in 1525 and 1526 who are finding that work is thin on the ground, iconoclasm is becoming more and more of an issue. The Reformation is really Grabbing, holding. Holbein seems to, comparatively speaking, to have had a fair bit of work in Basel, in part, I suspect, because he comes back from France equipped with these new ideas, new models, new ways of doing things.
- [26:46]
A
And also what's new, you suggest, is this idea of creating portrait reproductions that he and Erasmus had arrived at that had taken him to France in the first place. I mean, so we've got techniques, but we've also got distribution. And that may not sound that unusual today, but actually it's just not that commonly done at the time.
- [27:10]
C
Exactly. So Holbein isn't the first person to ever, the first painter to ever create a template for a sitter and then make multiple versions of that template or type. But he and Erasmus seem to take it to a whole new level. And as you say, this encompasses distribution and the idea of having a pan European network, which is new and we don't know how they get the idea. But I speculate in the book that perhaps something about the fact that both Holbein and Erasmus were embedded in this new world of print, this new world of print culture, in the printing press, where suddenly it's comparatively easy to produce books, written materials in large numbers, to produce new editions and to send them far and wide. So I wonder if it's something about that model that plants an idea in both of their minds, that then transforms the way in which they approach portraits of Erasmus and how they might be deployed as tokens of humanist friendship. But also, Erasmus was very savvy. The ways in which imagery and portraiture in particular, could be used to grease the wheels of diplomacy, grease the wheels of patronage. He was on the lookout not just for preferment at the French court, but he was always hopeful of finding a way back to England, ideally with royal patronage. So one of the reasons that he was sending portraits of himself by Holbein to England in 1524 was in the hope of rekindling various connections at the Tudor court, and no doubt hoping that something might materialize in the way of an offer from Henry viii.
- [29:16]
B
Grief doesn't keep a calendar. Anxiety doesn't clock out after five. Depression doesn't care if it's your busy season. But support can still fit into your life. With Grow, you can find a therapist who meets you where you are. They connect you with thousands of independent licensed therapists across the US offering both virtual and in person sessions. You can search by insurance provider, specialty treatment methods and more to find a therapist who works for you. And if it's not the right fit, switching is easy. There are no subscriptions, no long term commitments. You just pay per session. Find therapy on your time, evenings, weekends, and Cancel up to 24 hours in advance at no cost. Whatever challenges you're facing, GrowthTherapy is here to help. Sessions average about $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. Visit growtherapy.com acast today to get started. That's growththerapy.com acast growtherapy.com acast availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.
- [30:37]
A
Yes, so we have Holbein arriving in England in 1526 with Erasmus recommendation letter in his hand. And of course he stayed with Erasmus's friend Thomas More and painted that famous portrait of More's family and various other works that are impressive to the English elite. Here again, some new technical analysis is giving insight, particularly into the More family portrait. What's been discovered Perhaps we should explain.
- [31:07]
C
That Holbein paints not just this huge group portrait, group composition of Moore and his wider family, but also does an individual portrait of More, the most famous example of which is in the Frick. And I think it's pretty clear individual portraits of most members of More's family, that is the same individuals who also appear in the group portrait. So what's so clever about this is that Holbein is creating portrait types for each of these individuals linked to Moore, which are very flexible. They can be freestanding half length or three quarter length portraits hanging on the wall in a long gallery, or they can work as part of a group composition in a single large painting, the freestanding ones. So for example, Moore's portrait in the Frick works as one half of a friendship diptych with say, an example of Erasmus's thinking portrait. But it also works as one half of a marital diptych with a freestanding portrait of Lady Moore. So it's all very clever and flexible and adaptable. We know from all sorts of technical analysis that has been done on the portrait of More in the Frick that it was an incredibly labor intensive process with a huge number of changes, a huge number of pentimenti. Moore and Holbein must have had endless discussions about it. So the angle of the scroll that Moore hall holds is changed, the level of frilliness of More's cuffs is changed, I suspect possibly because More may have got a little bit anxious about appearing to be taking too much pleasure in his appearance. Erasmus, of course, had famously praised him for not being vain about his appearance. So we know that there were a huge number of reworkings to Moore's portrait. And a similar thing applies with the family portrait as well. Huge amounts of reworking and the group composition that survives, which is from a not quite final stage in the creative process, has extraordinary levels of sort of marginalia, all sorts of scribbles from Holbein to himself about details to add, changes to be made. It's such an interesting insight into the creative process. Holbein a perfectionist, more. An absolute perfectionist, and more almost certainly commissioning paintings or portraits, I should say, for the very first time ever, and clearly wanting to get it right. How they communicated we don't know, but probably Nicholas Kratzer, the Royal astronomer, who was a native German speaker, but also had excellent Latin, of course, and close ties to Moore, must have acted as translator for much of this. So it's all terribly exciting. And we know that when Holbein leaves England in 1528, he takes many of these drawings with him. Again, I think it's easy to read backwards and assume, because we know that Holbein ends up coming back to England in 1532, that that was always the plan. But of course, Holbein, he might have hoped he would be coming back to England, but he couldn't possibly have known that. And I think in the short term, when he left England in 1528 to go back to Basel, is simply hoping to maintain ties with English patrons like More and More's wider family, and looking for ways he can continue to do work for them long distance from Basel. Going back to the point you made a few moments ago about this revolutionary pan European distribution network and kind of the idea of having this international business. So we know, for example, that he is producing a portrait of Lady Moore from Basel to send, we presume, to England. What's fascinating about that, because it's a freestanding portrait of Lady Moore, but conforms to the type that we see in the group composition. For many years it was assumed that Portrait of Lady More was painted in England, perhaps during Holbein's first visit, perhaps during his second. But in any case, it clearly had to be painted in Basel 1 because it's painted on limewood, which would be a very unusual material to have come across in London, but was the default wood for painters working in Basel, but also because it's clear from X ray and infrared that this was a panel that Holbein's workshop reused. So there is underneath Lady Moore's portrait, and not visible to the naked eye, a painting of the elderly Erasmus of a type that Holbein's Basel workshop was churning out in great numbers from about 1530 onwards. That's a really exciting aha moment. And so interesting. Well, on so many levels. On the one hand, the way in which it shows just the practical level, that you don't want to waste a piece of wood in the workshop, if that picture of Erasmus isn't going to be sold, you might as well reuse it for one of Lady Moore. But also so exciting that the combination of the use of winewood and the presence of Erasmus image, together with what we know about the drawings that Holbein took back with him from England to Basel, really paints this very vivid picture of someone who is continuing to work for patrons like the Moors at the Tudor Court, while back in Basel. And I think that he also, as a gift from More to Erasmus, gives Erasmus a version of the More group portrait. There's a letter, a series of letters from the autumn of 1529, so after Holbein has been back in Basel for about a year, in which Erasmus is thanking Thomas More and Thomas More's daughter Meg Roper, for an image of the entire More family that Holbein has just presented to him. And traditionally this has been assumed to be a reference to the surviving drawing by Holbein of the group composition, which I think is probably not right. Looking at the Latin of the original letters and studying all of Erasmus and More's Latin correspondence whenever they're referring to images. The language that is used in these thank you letters that Erasmus writes in the autumn of 1529 is the language that he and those in More circle used when they were talking unambiguously about paintings. So he talks about Holbein as pictur, the image as pictura. This is not the language that they would have used if they were talking about a drawing on a piece of paper. So I think we have to assume that Holbein created another version of this when he got back to Basel and that More ordered it as a gift for Erasmus. I mean, this is not to say that it was as enormous as the one that we know that Holbein painted for More's house in Chelsea, which was about 9ft by 12ft. It may well have been much smaller, but. But I think it was an actual painting, not a sort of working drawing.
- [38:35]
A
One of the things we need to point out is that when Holbein returned to Basel in 1528, he married Elspeth Binzenstock and she had one child. She was a widow. They went on to have four children together. But four years later, he Returned permanently, it seems, to England. So what was going on there? Had he somehow found long term patronage at the the Tudor court? What prompted his move?
- [39:02]
C
Well, Holbein leaves Basel either in late 1531 or early 1532. We don't know exactly when, but he certainly seems to be back in England by about April 1532. Again, it's tempting reading backwards with the benefit of hindsight, because we know he effectively makes England his home until his death in 1543. It's tempting to assume that that was always the plan. In fact, we don't know what arrangements he made with his wife and children, with his guild, with the Basel Council when he set off in late 1531 or early 1532 for England. Strictly speaking, he was not meant to have more than a two year absence from his guild, which is why his previous visit to England, 1526-28, was. He was away from Basel for basically exactly two years, including the travel time, the catalyst for his departure in late 1531, early 1532. Basel in 1529 had experienced some of the most violent riots of the whole 16th century. Holbein would have witnessed huge numbers of his own sacred works being destroyed. Many painters in Basel after those events gave up and looked for work in other fields. Some became English innkeepers, some tried to become carpenters or joiners. Some completely went to pieces from the stress and the trauma of what they had witnessed. Holbein, comparatively speaking, seems to have done pretty well in Basel during those lean years in terms of working pretty regularly and being a good provider. I think mainly because he was able to pivot towards portraiture and found himself doing very well, producing portraits of the elderly Erasmus for a pan European market and continuing to work for patrons at the English court. But I think clearly he could see that it was going to be hard work to scrape out a Levine in Basel. So I think economic reasons are the main reason that he returns to England. And as I mentioned a moment ago, of course we know that he remains in England until, or makes England his home until his death in 1543. But I'm not sure that was the conscious intention. I think as well, though it has traditionally been thought that he only went back to Basel Once, in 1538, when we know that he sort of hammered out a new agreement with the Basel Council that provided certain generous financial provisions for his wife and children. One of the things I discovered when I was working on this book is that there's quite a lot of evidence to suggest that in fact he went back more regularly. So he seems to have gone back in about late 1533, early 1534, again, possibly in 1536, 1537, again probably in 1540. So I think he was traveling back and forth possibly more than we have realised. And again, it's interesting how the documentary evidence and the physical material evidence of the surviving works of art work together to paint this picture. So, for example, with regard to the possible probable visit of late 1533, early 1534, there's a rather cryptic reference in the documentary sources for Holbein's Basel Guild to him possibly doing some work in Basel in November 1533, but it's ambiguous. It could potentially refer to work he would have done if he had been there. But we have three surviving works depicting figures at the Tudor court from 1534 which are painted on limewood, which is a very strange thing if those pictures were painted in England or if Holbein was not in the German speaking lands at about that date. I'm sure if one absolutely desperately wanted limewood in London, one could get hold of it, but it wasn't something that was plentiful in London. It would just make a lot more sense if Holbein was in fact in Basel, if that documentary reference from November 1533 is indeed proof of him having gone back and done a bit of work with his old guild and he picks up some limewood while he's there and then uses that when he's back in London in 1534. So, I mean, as you well know, with, with the Tudor period, with the 16th century, there is rarely a smoking gun that absolutely, definitively, 100% proves that a certain thing happened. But what I've tried to do with this book is to piece together, to gather together clues from both the documentary record and the material evidence of the works of art themselves, to try to suggest some new interpretations, some new ways of thinking about the standard trajectory of Holbein's life and career.
- [44:26]
B
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- [45:48]
A
And one of the new suggestions is of the importance of the Greenwich Rebels. So what were they and what was their importance to Holbein establishing himself in the Tudor court?
- [45:59]
C
Absolutely. So in May 1527, the English court played host to the French court, really for only 24 hours of festivities. But as was so often the case with court festivals of the Renaissance, months and months and months of planning and huge amounts of money were lavished on something that was ephemeral, was a spectacle that was over almost in the blink of an eye. And we tend, I think today there's a modern art historical bias that tends to. To push ephemeral art and architecture to one side, not least because, well, there's a clue in the name Ephemeral. Virtually no examples survive. We have to reconstruct the probable appearance of the paintings and architectural structures created for the Greenwich Revels and similar revels from written sources. So these events historically have tended to be given short shrift by art historians, but the Tudors certainly didn't think of them as inferior in any way. In fact, Henry VIII, I would say, in the 1520s, certainly thought court festivals were far more important than painted portraits in terms of ways of projecting his magnificence and his power on the world stage. And of course, festivals such as the 1527 Greenwich Revels were a way in which European courts tried to outdo one another. There was great cultural one upsmanship, and it was all part of the delicate diplomatic dance. So Holbein ended up having a starring role as one of the artificers employed on these festivities. He ended up collaborating with Nicholas Croatzer, the king's astronomer, on the creation of a celestial ceiling which formed the roof to the theater in which various plays and masks were performed. And because Henry VIII was so pleased with the celestial ceiling when he was shown it about six weeks before the festivities were due to k, he then seems to have given Holbein a second commission, one that wasn't originally envisioned. And this was to paint a depiction of the Battle of the spurs, which, of course, was a famous English victory over the French. And on the night in question, Holbein's painting of the Battle of the spurs was affixed to the back of a triumphal arch whilst the English and French were having a banquet. So in other words, no one could see it while they were eating. But as they left the banqueting space to walk to the theatre where they were going to see a play under Holbein and Croatzer's celestial ceiling, Henry viii, once they'd passed the triumphal arch, then stopped everyone and directed his French guests attention to Holbein's painting of the Battle of the spurs on the back of the triumphal arch, which Henry obviously thought was a very witty way of putting the French in their place. But it's also a real moment of cultural one upsmanship and throwing down the cultural gauntlet by saying, look, what a good painter I have in my employ. I suspect this raised Holbein's hopes that royal preferment and perhaps some more permanent appointment at the English court was going to be on the offing very quickly. And that wasn't how things panned out. He had to wait many more years before he had a salaried appointment at court as King's painter. But certainly he made his splash from the get go. And the impression that he made on various of the French dignitaries present for the 1527 Greenwich Revels may well have played a role in later commissions that he would receive from French diplomats stationed at the English court in the 1530s.
- [49:46]
A
You've also found detailed documentation of why Holbein couldn't rely on Thomas More's patronage. Moving on. Why was that?
- [49:54]
C
Well, More was Holbein's most important patron during his first visit to England, 1526-28. And basically all the work that Holbein received in England during that first visit stemmed either directly or indirectly from More. So, for example, it is via More that Holbein gets the Greenwich Revels gig when Holbein returns to England, arriving, as I mentioned earlier, probably by about April 1532. We don't know what was in Holbein's mind, but I suspect he may have been hoping that he could pick up where he had left off with Thomas More. And in fact, his hopes may have been raised in that regard by conversations with someone called Simon Granais, who he would have crossed paths with in Basel because they were collaborating on a map of the world that was being printed by Johannes. Herr Wagen Gronaus had visited England in the summer of 1531 and had been entranced by England, the English More in particular, and had come back to Basel, rhapsodizing about his experiences. So if he communicated any of this to Holbein, one can imagine it might have made Holbein nostalgia for his own earlier experiences in Moore's orbit. But what no one could have foreseen is that during the period when Holbein most likely would have been traveling from Basel to England, More's relationship with Henry was reaching crisis point. They had been on something of a collision course for a few years. But it all really unravels in late 1531, early 1532, and culminates in May 1532, with more resigning as Lord Chancellor, resigning all his offices. And from that point onward, he has no public career, he has no patronage to dispense, he has very little in the way of political power, he has no income. So if Holbein was hoping to pick up where he had left off with More, his timing couldn't have been worse. More is now toxic in the eyes of the king. But Holbein seems to have been very good at landing on his feet. He very quickly pivots and almost immediately counts Cromwell as his chief patron. And of course, Cromwell is the person who derives the greatest benefit in spring of 1532 from More's fall. So I think that the topsy turvy experiences of Holbein's childhood in Augsburg, with his father's somewhat uncertain financial situation, and then the topsy turvy situation in Basel with the iconoclastic riots, I think taught Holbein a lot about how to survive and how to just, if one door closes, you find another one to open. He seems to have been someone who just rolled with the punches and was very able to distance himself from patrons who no longer were of use to him, and seems to have been quite pragmatic about just moving on when it was shrewd to do so.
- [53:14]
A
Yes, and he manages to survive Henry VIII's court, probably until plague hits in 1543. And of course, listeners will be familiar with things like his magnificent Whitehall mural, at least the. The small versions that we have of it, and the cartoon at the National Portrait Gallery and his likeness of Anne of Cleves. But I want to finish by talking to you about some of the major conclusions that your research has led you to. We've talked about the use of mass media, really sort of, to create modern portrait marketing. Can we talk about him as a kind of cultural ambassador as well? How important were the production and distribution of Holbein's portraits to international relations during the Tudor period?
- [54:02]
C
I think hugely Important, I think Holbein, as I mentioned a few moments ago, in the 1520s, when Holbein was employed on the Greenwich Revels, I don't think Henry or very many people at the English court yet were terribly interested in painted portraits. The concept of the Long Gallery as a place where you might display portraits hadn't really taken off yet. And I think up until the mid-1530s, Henry sees court festivals, architecture, plate jewelry as the ways to proclaim his magnificence and power on the world stage, the way to impress and intimidate other monarchs. But something changes because of holbein in the mid-1530s, and Henry, through the White Hole mural and independent freestanding images of Henry based on that template, suddenly seems to realize that painted portraiture, if done by someone as talented as Holbein, is an incredibly effective propaganda tool. And it's portable as well. And it does seem to be a seismic shift in terms of the use of portraiture as a diplomatic gift. The use of portraiture, the whole birth of the English Long Gallery, can be traced to this moment. It's very clear from looking at inventories that it is in the late 1530s that the English start having the long galleries full of portraits of the great and the good displaying their allegiance to the monarch through images, painted images of the monarch. This is when this all takes off in Holbein. And early patrons like Moore and Cromwell are such a big part of that. It's interesting in the 1520s, we know from inventories that someone like Wolsey telegraphs, before his fall, his allegiance to the crown, through tapestries which feature the royal coat of arms, Cromwell is displaying not painted images of Henry, but painted images of the royal coat of arms. And by the late 1530s, this is all changing. Everybody, and not just people in the king's inner circle are starting to display painted images of the king. And so it's so interesting, I think, in terms of the bigger story of the history of portraiture, the history of painting, the history of the Long Gallery in England. Holbein is integral to that. And there is this seismic shift in England in the late 1530s, and it's very clearly traceable in the surviving documentary evidence.
- [56:43]
A
The other thing that we really must draw out is, as you said, you're using the combination of art history and this new technological analysis to tell us a lot about Holbein's process, his actual technique, to create an image. So what overall have we learned and how does this change things?
- [57:01]
C
Well, I think, though we have learned a huge amount, I Think it's important to remain humble and very aware of how much we don't know and may never know. The drawings, for example, the portrait drawings that survive, are probably only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what Holbein actually produced. And we don't know exactly why the ones that have survived have survived. We don't know how representative they are of the whole. Some are pricked and pounced for transfer, others have been traced for transfer. It's not entirely clear why. Sometimes Holbein preferred one method of transfer, other times another method. I think what's striking is how much we don't know and may never know. But one theme that emerges throughout, I think, is Holbein's perfectionism. It's a rare work of art by him that doesn't seem to have had huge numbers of tweaks and changes, huge numbers of pentimenti. He does seem to have been the consummate perfectionist, and this comes through as well in some contemporary comments of his. When asked to assess his works of art, I think sort of the highest praise we get is it's quite good. But one senses someone who was very, very driven and never quite satisfied. It's fascinating looking at the drawings and all the marginal notes to self. You really get the sense of a mind actively mulling over problems, looking for solutions. I don't think Holbein was terribly educated in terms of formal education. I don't think he aspired to be seen as the practitioner of a liberal art. In many respects, I think he was the anti Hilliard. Hilliard was so obsessed. We talked about this in an earlier podcast with being perceived as the practitioner of liberal art and writes his treatise on miniature painting. I don't think Holbein cared about any of that, but very, very intelligent person nonetheless. Constantly looking for a better way to do things, constantly looking for ways to refine his process. And I think the pan European distribution models are an extension of that. Looking for ways to just be bigger, to be better, to do something innovative that no one else had done before. I think he was incredibly ambitious and driven and such a shame that he died so young. It would be interesting to know what he might have done had he carried on a bit longer.
- [59:30]
A
Yes, just imagine another 30 years of Holbein. Well, thank you, Dr. Elizabeth Goldring, for coming on to the podcast to share some of your findings around Holbein. And it is exciting to me that new work is being done all the time, new things being discovered about somebody who has been the focus of our attention for so many centuries. Thank you for your part in moving that on.
- [59:53]
C
Thank you, Susie.
- [59:57]
A
Thank you for listening to this episode of Not Just the Tudors From History Hit. Thank you also to my researcher, Max Wintool, my producer Rob Weinberg, and to Amy Haddo, who edited this episode. We are always eager to hear from you, including receiving your brilliant ideas for subjects we can cover. So do drop us a line@notjusthetorshistorykit.com and I look forward to joining you again for another episode. Next time on not just the Tudors From History Hit.