OF all the important European schools of painting, the Early German school is the one of which it is almost impossible to gain anything like an adequate idea from the pictures that have found their way into the Galleries of foreign countries. The fact is that with the exception of two or three leading masters, like Holbein and DÜrer, the Early Germans found but scant favour beyond the confines of their own country until comparatively recent years—that is to say, until the majority of important examples had been systematically gathered in by the museums of Germany. Now that the importance of the German primitives and Early Renaissance painters has been generally recognised, it will be practically impossible to regain the lost ground and to fill up the serious gaps which prevent our forming an adequate idea of the evolution of German art in the museums of other countries. The Louvre is no exception to this rule. The numerical weakness of the German section is unfortunately not atoned for by the importance of the examples included, which, with but few exceptions, are of little artistic account.

Under the circumstances it would be useless to attempt a consecutive narrative of the evolution of German art as illustrated by the pictures at the Louvre, and we must confine ourselves to a brief discussion of the few noteworthy works in the collection.

“THE MASTER OF THE BARTHOLOMEW ALTAR”

The first picture of importance belongs to the period when the idealism of the Early Gothic primitives was already replaced by a strong naturalism, and the creation of types by that of clearly characterised individualities. This picture, the Descent from the Cross (No. 2737), by the unknown “Master of the Bartholomew Altar,” is so called, in accordance with German custom, from his best known work, the great altarpiece in the Pinakothek at Munich. In the large Louvre picture, which bears a close resemblance to the precious little panel by the same master in the possession of the Hon. Edward Wood, at Temple Newsam, the Saviour is being lowered from the Cross by Nicodemus into the hands of one of the Holy Women on the left, and of Joseph of ArimathÆa on the right. The group is completed by St. John supporting the Virgin on the extreme left, the Magdalen and another Holy Woman on the right, and a Disciple seated on a ladder above the central group. The figures are shown, as in the Temple Newsam painting of the same subject, against a gold background framed with rich Gothic tracery. This altarpiece is believed to be the last picture by this Cologne master, who flourished between 1490 and 1515, and was in his later manner influenced by Rogier van der Weyden and other Flemish masters. This eminently important Early German picture was painted for a Jesuit establishment in the rue St. Antoine, Paris, which accounts for its presence in the French national collection.

COLOGNE PAINTERS

The “Master of the Death of Mary,” to whose school belongs the Descent from the Cross, with a predella representing The Last Supper, and a lunette with St. Francis receiving the Stigmata (No. 2738), has been identified by Wauters and Aldenhoven with the early-sixteenth-century Flemish painter Joos van Cleef the Elder, and belongs to the Antwerp rather than the Cologne school. The “Master of St. Severin,” to whom the official Catalogue ascribes the two Scenes from the Life of St. Ursula (Nos. 2738c and 2738d), was probably a Flemish painter who worked at Cologne at the beginning of the sixteenth century. But the two panels at the Louvre, which were formerly at the Cluny Museum, are not from his brush. They are the work of his pupil, the “Master of the Ursula Legend,” and belong to a series of which other panels can be seen at the Victoria and Albert Museum and at Cologne.

The first definite name in the annals of the Cologne school is that of BartolomÄus Bruyn (c. 1493–1555), who was a follower of Joos van Cleef but subsequently became completely imbued with the Italian spirit. His portraits, in which he remained more faithful to the tradition of his country, are of greater significance than his religious compositions, and closely resemble those by Joos van Cleef; but the Portrait of a Man with a White Cross on his Breast (No. 2702) is only a school picture of indifferent quality.

ALBRECHT DÜRER

The flourishing school which had its centre at Nuremberg is represented at the Louvre by the master who marks its zenith and who, if his craftsmanship was not always on a level with the perfection of Holbein’s, shares with the Augsburg master the honour of uncontested leadership of all German artists. Albrecht DÜrer (1471–1528) was born at Nuremberg, of Hungarian descent. He studied his art under Michael Wohlgemut, a very able Nuremberg painter, who was, however, led by his popularity to factory-like production of pictures that passed under his name, although they were largely executed by inferior pupils. DÜrer, who excelled equally as an engraver and as a painter, was, on the other hand, one of the most sincere and personal artists of his time—a profound thinker, a shrewd observer, a student of life in all its phases, an idealist who was ever striving for beautiful expression, even though the realistic tradition of his country did not allow him to attain to the abstract ideal of beauty which had been reached by some of the contemporary Italians. Indeed, DÜrer may with justice be called the Leonardo of the North. He studied Venetian art on a visit to Venice in 1505, whither he had been preceded by his fame. He also travelled to the Netherlands in 1520, the year in which he painted the signed and dated Head of an Old Man (No. 2709), his other picture at the Louvre being the not very masterly Head of a Child (No. 2709a).

DÜRER’S FOLLOWERS

DÜrer died in 1528 from a disease contracted during his journey to the Netherlands. Among his principal pupils were Georg Pencz (c. 1500–1550), to whom is without sufficient reason attributed the indifferent half figure of St. John the Evangelist (No. 2730); and Hans Sebald Beham (c. 1500–1550), the famous engraver, of whom the Louvre is fortunate to possess the only known painting, a table top divided by golden lances into four compartments, each of which contains a Subject from the Story of David (No. 2701): the Entry of Saul into Jerusalem; David and Bathsheba (in which scene is introduced a portrait of Archbishop Albrecht of Mayence, for whom the work was executed); the Siege of Rabbath; and the Prophet Nathan before David (with a portrait of the artist and the initials of his name, “h. s. b.”).

LUCAS CRANACH

This same Archbishop Albrecht, whose features are also known to us from two engravings by DÜrer and a painting by GrÜnewald, was one of the most generous patrons of Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472–1553), whose busy workshops at Wittenberg supplied the whole north and east of Germany with portraits, altarpieces, historical and mythological pictures. Lucas Cranach was a follower of GrÜnewald, the great head of the Colmar school. Apart from his merit as a colourist and an excellent draughtsman, he attracts by the naÏve grace of his nude figures and by the complete manner in which he reflects the taste of his time and country. But of the five little pictures that figure in the Louvre Catalogue under his name, not one is from his own hand. Indeed, the Venus in a Landscape (No. 2703) is the only one that may with a degree of safety be attributed to his son, Lucas Cranach the Younger, who carried on the management of the studio some years before his father’s death, and continued to imitate his style until his own death in 1586. The Venus bears the usual Cranach signature of a winged serpent and the date 1520. The same crest, with the date 1532, figures on the portrait of Johann Friedrich III., Elector of Saxony (No. 2704), who is known on one occasion to have given a wholesale order of sixty replicas of the same portrait to the Wittenberg master. It may be imagined that a commission of this nature would not be executed by the head of the studio, but left to his staff of assistants. The Fighting Savages (No. 2702a) and the two Portraits (Nos. 2703a and 2705) are, at the best, studio works.

HANS HOLBEIN

We now come to the second of the two commanding figures in German art, Hans Holbein the Younger (1497–1543), who was born at Augsburg and studied under his father, the elder artist of the same name. When he reached his maturity the Italian influence had already permeated German art, but he was the first Northern master who knew how to benefit by the real spirit of the Renaissance without imitating the letter; the first to develop a noble, dignified style, free from the florid trivialities which so many Northerners took from certain Italian painters. He was above all a marvellous portrait painter who, in his drawings as well as in his paintings, combines the most exquisite delicacy and subtlety with rare strength, the greatest precision of detail with freedom and breadth of handling. Only this phase of his art is represented at the Louvre, which certainly owns one perfect example of Holbein’s portraiture in the Portrait of Erasmus (No. 2715, Plate XXIV.).

Holbein had settled in Basle in 1519. He went to England in 1526, with a letter of introduction from Erasmus to Sir Thomas More. From one of Erasmus’s letters it would appear that Holbein had portrayed him at least three times before 1524; and the picture now in the Louvre was probably the one that was painted for Sir Thomas More—a better recommendation than any letter of introduction! The profile is drawn with inimitable mastery; and the whole character of the man can be read from the expression of the tight-pressed lips and mobile features, as he sits writing at his desk. Note, also, the marvellous expressiveness of the hands, studies for which are to be found in the collection of drawings at the Louvre.

In view of the personal relations which link together Holbein, Erasmus, and Sir Thomas More, it would be pleasant if we could accept the so-called Portrait of Thomas More, Great Chancellor of England (No. 2717), as authentic. It does not, however, represent Holbein’s first English patron, nor does it appear to be from the master’s own brush.

THE KRATZER PORTRAIT

Holbein’s first sojourn in England extended from 1526 to 1528, in which year he returned to Basle. It must have been shortly before his departure that he painted the Portrait of Nicolas Kratzer, Astronomer to King Henry VIII. (No. 2713); it is an unquestionably authentic work, although it has been so extensively repainted that little is now left of the original, save the general disposition of the design and the instruments placed on the table and hung on the wall, which are executed with all the loving care that Holbein was wont to bestow upon such accessories. Still, even in its present condition, the portrait is a thoroughly convincing likeness of “a man who is brimful of wit, jest, and humorous fancies”—as Kratzer is referred to by one of his contemporaries. A sheet of paper on the left of the table appears to be inscribed:—

Although decidedly superior to another version of the same picture at Lambeth Palace, the Portrait of William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury (No. 2714), which bears the inscription,

cannot without hesitation be accepted as an original work. It lacks, at any rate, the finesse of the beautiful drawing at Windsor Castle, upon which it is evidently based.

To the same year belongs the Portrait of Sir Richard Southwell (No. 2719), to whose treacherous accusation was due the execution of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. But this picture, again, is only a replica, by an inferior hand, of the magnificent portrait in the Uffizi Gallery (No. 765). An inscription in the background, at both sides of the head, reads:

It would thus appear that the picture was painted in 1537, the twenty-eighth year of Henry viii.’s reign. The Portrait of a Man holding a Carnation and a Rosary (No. 2720) is a picture of poor quality and has no connection whatever with Holbein.

PORTRAIT OF ANNE OF CLEVES

Of far greater importance and undisputed authenticity is the Portrait of Anne of Cleves, Fourth Wife of Henry VIII. (No. 2718). No credence is to be attached to the legend invented by Bishop Burnet more than a century after that ill-treated lady’s death, according to which Holbein’s flattering portrait was instrumental in “bluff King Hal’s” choice of his fourth spouse and responsible for the king’s disappointment at setting eyes upon Anne. The picture, which was painted in 1539, seven years after Holbein’s definite return to England and to the service of Henry viii., has not only that air of inevitable truthfulness which distinguishes all Holbein’s portraiture, but tallies to a remarkable degree with the descriptions sent to Henry viii. by his agents. Whilst not exactly unpleasant to behold, the features are those of a spiritless, dull woman—an impression which is intensified by the absence of life and character in the hands, which Holbein invariably studied as closely as the face. The painting of the richly embroidered and jewelled costume, the stately symmetry of the design, and the beautiful scheme of colour are really the chief attractions of this picture.

The Adoration of the Magi (No. 2711a), which was at one time attributed to the elder, and subsequently to the younger, Holbein, is now rightly given to the latter’s contemporary and compatriot Gumpold Giltlinger, an Augsburg painter of no particular distinction.

Before the end of the sixteenth century German art had entered upon a period of complete decadence. The only painter who claims attention, not so much for the undeniable merit of his very highly finished landscapes, but for the fact that he exercised a certain influence upon Rembrandt, is the Frankfort painter, Adam Elsheimer (1578–1621?), who worked at Rome, and who is represented at the Louvre by The Flight into Egypt (No. 2710) and The Good Samaritan (No. 2711).

For the rest, the German painters of his period and of the whole of the seventeenth century retained scarcely a trace of national character, and were completely under the sway of the foreign, and particularly of the Italian, schools. Thus, Johann Rottenhammer (1564–1623), the painter of The Death of Adonis (No. 2732) and Diana and Calisto (No. 2733), was successively dominated by Jan Brueghel and by Tintoretto. The flower painter, Abraham Mignon (1640–1679), though born at Frankfort, was a pupil of David de Heem and a Dutchman in his art. His pictures at the Louvre (Nos. 2724–2729) are distributed between the German and the Dutch sections. Philipp Peter Roos, better known as Rosa da Tivoli (1665?–1705), who painted the Wolf devouring a Sheep (No. 2731), lived in Rome and adopted the style of the country of his domicile. The Bear Hunt (No. 2734) is the work of Carl Ruthart, another unimportant Italianising German of the second half of the seventeenth century.

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

The work of the Hamburg painter, Baltasar Denner (1685–1749), has no claim to be considered as a manifestation of art: it is merely a display of mechanical skill in the microscopic rendering of the little lines and pores and stubbly hair on the skin of old people’s faces. He lived for seven years in London, where he painted in 1724 the signed Portrait of an Old Woman (No. 2706), which was bought in 1852 for £756. Another characteristic example of his misapplied skill is the portrait (No. 2707) in the La Caze Room.

Christian Wilhelm Dietrich (1712–1774) and Heinrich Wilhelm Schweickhardt (1746–1787) are too insignificant to deserve serious consideration. The same remark applies to Christian Seybold (1703?–1768), who became Court Painter to the Empress Maria Theresa; and to Johann Ernest Heinsius, who was active as a portrait painter in France during the reign of Louis xvi. All that is to be noted in their pictures at the Louvre is the total absence of all artistic merit.

Of somewhat greater importance, though by no means of the first rank, are the two last German artists who claim our attention: Raphael Mengs (1728–1779) and Angelica Kaufmann, (1741–1807), who is catalogued among the painters of the German school, although she was Swiss by birth, Italian by education, and English by domicile. Her sex was no bar to her becoming one of the Foundation members of the English Royal Academy, and she is generally counted among the English painters. The portrait group of The Baroness von KrÜdner and her Daughter (No. 2722) is a poor example of her art, which invariably sought to please by conventional prettiness.

Raphael Mengs, the painter of the portrait of Marie Amelia Christina of Saxony, Wife of Charles III. of Spain, was born at Aussig in Bohemia, studied whilst still a boy in Italy, and became Court Painter to Charles iii., who invited him to Madrid in 1761. Mengs was an exceedingly accomplished technician and draughtsman, who modelled himself on Raphael and the Italian eclectics, but was wholly lacking in originality and inspiration. He tried his hand in every branch of his art, and was most successful in portraiture, although even his portraits are lacking in penetration of character. He, however, excelled as a copyist, and died in Rome in 1779.