Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice older book in good condition. Some tanning wear and marking due to age. Plates bright and vivid. Very large book.. Year 1903. Hardcover. English. See images for condition.

About the book >.>.> I have as the reader will discover and not I trust to his dissatisfac-tion omitted from my pages the mass of gossip which has grown up around the life of Holbein as it has around the life of many other artists. Where such gossip rests on no evidence and can claim no historic value I have seen no advantage in inserting it. The ascertained facts of Holbein’s life are few: it is not impossible that they may be added to in the future as in the near past by the discovery of fresh documentary evidence. Meanwhile and until such discovery takes place nothing can be gained by the intro-duction of tradition generally childish and often scandalous which at no time rested on any basis of fact and which can only be traced back to a date at which all contemporary witnesses had long passed away. The personality of so great an artist as Holbein fascinates the imagination but a writer has to resist the temptation of building up that personality out of such untrustworthy material. (OS)