favorite one at that period, and was portrayed by artists of all grades, in paintings or etchings, particularly on the wall of the Dominican convent at Basle, and upon the arches of bridges. Holbein's designs, published in 1538 and widely copied and circulated, are grimly ironical and grotesque. His fantastic, triumphal "March of Death" has in it something at once facetious, malicious, and terrible. "Here he strikes with his wand the tambourine before the wedding procession; there he takes the role of a chambermaid, and clasps around the neck of a pretty countess a necklace of bones. Farther on, he stops the peddler, loaded with his basket, or pulls off the hat of a cardinal selling indulgences. Sinister in his carnival disguises, sometimes he puts on the accoutrements of folly to mislead a queen; sometimes an unexpected guest, in the guise of a cup-bearer, he pours the deadly beverage for a king. Now he puts on the deacon's stole to interrupt the sermon of the preacher; now that of the sacristan, with bell and lantern, to guide the convoy of the priest himself, bearing the viaticum to the dying; or he takes the place of the dog of the blind man who, groping toward the tomb, trembles lest he should make a false step. Here Death has not the horrible grin; he is serious, pitiful. See the resigned sadness of the poor husbandman who, pushing the plough before him, is suddenly assisted by a ploughboy who is Death! How touching is the scene which Nature frames with such naïve grace, lighted by the sun sinking to the horizon behind the tower of the village church!"

Holbein's last years were spent in London, where he died of the plague in 1543. He left no distinguished followers, unless we may except Christopher Amberger, a pupil of the

elder Holbein, but an imitator of the younger. His portraits resemble those of his contemporary, but are softer and more feeble. A head of Charles V. at Berlin, and of Henry VIII. at Augsburg, are ascribed to him, while an "Herodias," at Vienna, reminds us of Luini's delicate finish. Most of his pictures, however, are at or near Amberg.

Protestant Saxony also brings before us in this century an artist who may be considered its painter of the Reformation. Lucas Cranach, really named Lucas Sunder, was born at Cranach, in Franconia, in 1472, and died at Weimar, in 1513. He was for a long time court-painter to the various Electors of Saxony, and was prolific, not only in portraits, but in sacred, historical, mythological, and hunting scenes, as well as in prints and engravings. He is humorous, realistic, fanciful, and intensely national and Protestant. Not many good examples of his style exist out of Germany, but his works are liberally scattered throughout that empire. His portraits of Luther and of Melanchthon are familiar to all travelers. A large upper room in the Dresden Gallery is filled with his altar-pieces and pictures. All are very smoothly finished, well-colored, quaint, and pleasing. Among the best is "Christ blessing Little Children," a subject which he frequently painted. The children are genuine German babies; while on the other side of the apartment you may contemplate Solomon followed by a train of equally German wives. His hunting-pieces are excellently done, but we cannot say so much for the nude Venuses, and "Adam and Eve," in which he sometimes indulged. In one of these Eve offers the fruit, while Adam looks at it and reflectively scratches his head! Munich possesses his "Woman taken in Adultery,"

Lot and his Daughters," a "Crucifixion," and several cabinet specimens, together with some portraits of the Electors of Saxony, and the inevitable Luther and Melanchthon. In St. Maurice's Chapel, Nuremberg, are two representations of "Death and Redemption." At Weimar is a large altar-piece of "Christ on the Cross," and in the parish church of Wittenberg is another altar-piece of the "Last Supper," with the Reformers preaching below. In the National Gallery, England, we find the portrait of a young girl, with an enormous head-dress; and at Berlin is his grotesque and extraordinary picture, “The Fountain of Youth." "A great pool or tank, fed by the miraculous Fount, adorned with statues of Venus and Cupid, appears in the centre of the composition. Numbers of old women, horrid hags, are splashing about in it. Some are seen undressing; others are brought up in litters, or on their husbands' backs, from the left: they enter the water and cross to the opposite bank, gradually regaining youth and beauty as they approach it; and are received, as they come out, by gallant cavaliers, who conduct them to a feast spread under the trees, and thence to the dance. The gradation from ugliness to what Cranach conceived of beauty is admirably expressed, and the naïveté of the whole composition is most striking."

A son of Cranach, called Lucas Cranach the Younger, survived till 1586. His works are shown in the churches of Wittenberg, and in some public galleries; but they are only faint reflections of his father's method. The stirring times of the Reformation were not favorable to the progress of painting; while over-zealous partisans were so eager to destroy the pictures and images associated with the old religion, that

we cannot cease to be thankful for the masterpieces which escaped their hands. After the ferment of the sixteenth

century, a new era in art, with an entire change in style, was,

we shall soon see, to be expected in Germany, Flanders, and Holland.

CHAPTER XIII.

LATER FLEMISH AND GERMAN PAINTING.

THE artistic records of Flanders and Germany, from the death of Quentin Matsys and Albrecht Dürer to the age of Rubens, remind us much of the season of famine which in ancient Egypt followed the seven years of plenty. A crowd of painters of little reputation and less ability are noticed in the catalogues referring to this intervening period; but it will only be necessary to specify a few of those best known, whose works will be found sprinkled through Northern galleries, filling up the spaces between more famous pictures.

Among the Flemish imitators of Italian excellence who survived Matsys, we must first refer to Lambert Sustermann, or Lambert Lombard, born at Liége, 1506, and a disciple of Andrea del Sarto at Florence, whose style he endeavored to introduce into the school for artists which he subsequently established at Liége, after his return to that city, where he died, about 1560. He was accomplished and talented, but unable to reach his ideal. Not many of his works remain. A "Madonna" is in the Berlin Museum. His pupil, Franz Floris, or rather Franz de Vriendt, was more industrious. He was born at Antwerp, in 1520, and became celebrated and rich, building himself a splendid house, and having one hundred and twenty young painters in his studio. It is he whom