So Erasmus advised Holbein to go to England, and gave him a letter
to Sir Thomas More. On this first visit in 1526, he painted the
portraits of More and his whole family, and of many other distinguished
men; but it was not till his second visit in 1532 that he became Henry
VIII.'s court painter. In this capacity he had to decorate the walls
of the King's palaces, design the pageantry of the Royal processions,
and paint the portraits of the King's family. Although Holbein could
do and did do anything that was demanded of him, what he liked best
was to paint portraits. Romantic subjects such as the fight of St.
George and the dragon, or an idyll of the Golden Age, little suited
the artistic leanings of a German. To a German or a Fleming the world
of facts meant more than the world of imagination; the painting of
men and women as they looked in everyday life was more congenial to
them than the painting of saints and imaginary princesses.
But how unimportant seems all talk of contrasting imagination and
reality when we see them fused together in this charming portrait of
Edward, the child Prince of Wales.
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