This is the more remarkable because Holbein was not always able to
paint and finish his portraits in the presence of the living model,
as painters insist on doing nowadays. His sitters were generally busy
men who granted him but one sitting, so that his method was to make
a drawing of the head in red chalk and to write upon the margin notes
of anything he particularly wanted to remember. Afterwards he painted
the head from the drawing, but had the actual clothes and jewels sent
him to work from.
In the Royal Collection at Windsor there are a number of these portrait
drawings of great interest to us, since many of the portraits painted
from them have been lost. As a record of remarkable people of that
day they are invaluable, for in a few powerful strokes Holbein could
set down the likeness of any face. But when he came to paint the portrait
he was not satisfied with a mere likeness. He painted too 'his habit
as he lived.' Erasmus is shown reading in his study, the merchant in
his office surrounded by the tokens of his business, and Henry VIII.
standing firmly with his legs wide apart as if bestriding a hemisphere.
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