The emphasis on the attribution of artworks on stylistic grounds can in part be
explained by the existence of many painted copies of Holbein’s work, as well as the lack of an artist’s signature. Apart from the objects themselves, there is little surviving evidence of portrait drawing practice during the Tudor period. Very few drawings survive, making Holbein’s group of portrait drawings particularly special, and little is known about the techniques used to transfer drawings to panel paintings. It is probable that such paucity is one of the reasons that connoisseurship and questions of attribution have plagued Holbein research, along with the financial value of the artworks. The definition of artistic style is problematic, but underpins connoisseurship.28Artistic style
28See, for example Jean. C Rush and Darrell. L Sabers, ‘The Perception of Artistic Style’. Studies in Art Education. 23.1.24-32. 1981
takes into account the physical aspects of an artwork – line, colour, shape, proportion etc. But an artist’s style can change over time; it can be a reflection of a workshop and is also dependent on the purpose of the work: factors not always taken into account in traditional connoisseurship.
Whilst modern technological innovation means that there is less reliance on speculative analysis, current literature still places an emphasis on attribution, supported by the important aspect of provenance. This can somewhat obscure another important question of how to account for the appearance of a drawing in order to help reveal its function. Holbein studies also naturally reflect different interests and the
preoccupations of the time, with lines of enquiry depending on the historian’s area of investigation or what was art historically de rigeur at the time. These factors obviously need to be remembered when critiquing historic literature in a time of different
perspectives. Writing in 1867, Wornum thought that Holbein was ‘unequalled in his faculty of drawing the human face’, but he does not go in to a huge amount of detail or analysis regarding how Holbein may have gone about this feat.29 Wornum, like others before and after him, is preoccupied by false attributions and new discoveries
concerning attribution. He discusses how hard it is to separate out the ‘genuine’ from the ‘spurious’ works of Holbein.30Furthermore, he inadvertently pinpoints the problems regarding connoisseurship:
…the assertion of a fact is one thing, the assertion of an opinion is another….A critic has every right to say that he doubts the ascription of a certain work to a certain master, without being pronounced dogmatical...I do not intend to assert that Holbein never painted such and such a work, but simply that I do not perceive his hand in it.31
But what exactly is Holbein’s hand and how is it defined? It is something a connoisseur is often reluctant to elucidate upon. In terms of the portrait drawings, ‘Holbein’s hand’
is much debated in relation to the black aqueous lines forming the contours, discussed later in this chapter. However, looking at a drawing and being able to ‘read’ it in such a way that it deepens our understanding of how it may have functioned, is a more
informative and perhaps more culturally valuable approach. Much of the extant
29Ralph Wornum. 1867. 4.
30Ralph Wornum, 1867. 37.
31Ralph Wornum, 1867.37-38.
Holbein literature is the result of a traditional connoisseurial approach to interpreting the drawings.32 It is an approach that was still widely used in the late 20thcentury and to a certain extent in current research. Indeed, aspects of connoisseurship such as the collection of empirical evidence, has been much used for this thesis. Art historian John Rowlands’ catalogue raissoné of 1985 is a study of Holbein’s painted oeuvre but in the main is concerned with questions of attribution and chronology but he does not give objective or adequate reasons for such attributions or re-attributions.33Similarly, in his discussion of the three versions of Thomas Cromwell, Roy Strong wrote that, ‘None of the versions is acceptable as directly from the hand of Holbein himself’ but does not go on to clarify any of the reasons for this statement.34 Traditional connoisseurship can lack a quantifiable methodology, making findings hard to define.
Writing in 1941, when the Burlington Magazine was still titled as one ‘for
Connoisseurs’, German art historian, Max J Friedlander (1867-1958) said that proving authorship comes down to quality.35Quality is a concept that is not readily defined and discussed within Holbein literature; this could be because it is seemingly entangled in the language of connoisseurship and is not always easy to explain. Quality could be judged as a matter of taste, for example and therefore not always an objective judgment.
Friedlander tied the concept of defining quality to that of the connoisseur, stating that the best way to define quality is in the comparison of original and copy.36 This is never more apparent than during the great debate over which of the Darmstadt Madonna paintings was the original by Holbein as discussed in Friedlander’s article.37In the disagreements that ensued, it seemed to come down to a matter of taste rather than any possible technical study at this time (1870s).38 What is clear is that some drawings and paintings are of ‘better quality’ than others, not just in terms of condition but in terms of
32Max Friedlander, ‘On Art and Connoisseurship’, London 1942; David Ebitz: ‘Connoisseurship as Practice’, Artibus et Historiae.9.18 207-212 1988; Gary Schwartz. ‘The Penalty of Ahistoricism’. Artibus et Historiae. 9.18. 1988. 201-206.
33John Rowlands, Holbein: The Paintings of Hans Holbein the Younger. Oxford: Phaidon Press. 1985
34Roy Strong, ‘Holbein in England I and II’. The Burlington Magazine May 1967 .109.770.277.
35Max J Friedlander, ‘Artistic Quality: Original and Copy’. The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs.
May1941. 78.458.143
36Max J Friedlander.1941.143-144.
37see also: Jochen Sander, ‘The Darmstadt Madonna’, Hans Holbein the Younger, Portraitist of the Renaissance, eds. Stephanie Buck and Jochen Sander. The Hague:Zwolle.2004.37-45 and Susan Foister,
‘Hans Holbein. The Hague’, review, The Burlington Magazine January 2004.146.1210.52
38Max J Friedlander.1941.144
technical skill and, although challenging, it would be useful to be able to define why this is the case.
Although there is a difference between an art historian and a connoisseur, the method of attribution - that is, equating works of art with the individual hand and style of the master - appears to have been the same historically. There are certain weaknesses in the reasoning behind some attribution decisions in terms of the subjectivity of traditional connoisseurship. There is an artificial importance attached to the authorship of pictures in general, which, as curator John Murdoch pointed out, is “…generally held to be a function of the respect for individualism in the Renaissance…”39Financial value in the art market must also play a part in the drive for attribution. Since connoisseurship is founded on the experience of the expert in looking at an artist’s oeuvre, the connoisseur will pinpoint an individual’s style and a measure of quality for attribution purposes.
Yet such a closed empirical approach fails to account for aspects or nuances that do not fall within their subjective prerequisites regarding a particular artist’s techniques and are often ignored. It is also often intimidating to question the authority of the ‘expert’.
Interpretations of Holbein’s drawings are limited by the inability of traditional connoisseurship to explain fully opinions and conclusions, to examine usage, and to explore issues such as condition or choice of materials.
Although intuition may be the first means of identification for a connoisseur, there still remains a need to try and explain this process. For example, it is far more informative, as art historian Gary Schwartz has proffered, to ascertain ‘authorship of an object through establishing the history of its production’ and not necessarily through the object itself.40 The way forward therefore, is not through the unproven Morellian theory that every artist leaves a ‘fingerprint’ in every work they produce:41the very aspect that every connoisseur says they can interpret. It is the methodology of establishing the artistic process of object production that can develop modern
connoisseurship and where art technological research emerges as the ideal candidate to
39John Murdoch, ‘Attribution and the Claim to Objectivity’. International Journal of Cultural Property, July 1993. 2.2 324.
40 Gary Schwartz. ‘The Penatly of Ahistoricism’. Artibus et Historiae. 1988. 9.18.204
41Giovanni Morelli (1816-1891) Italian art critic, developed a method of connoisseurship from
scrutinising characteristics he thought particular to that artist, concluding that ‘every important painter has, so to speak, a type of hand and ear peculiar to himself ’. Morelli, Italian Painters: Studies of their Works, trans. from German by C J Ffoulkes with an introduction by A H Layard. J Murray: London. 1892-3.vol.1.22
help with this. Art technological research comprises an holistic approach to objects, incorporating scientific analysis, source research and reconstruction and is discussed as a methodology in detail below. Studying works in groups to establish a sense of
working practice and the context in which they were made is a useful method in making steps to a better understanding of works.
One has little idea of the size of the portrait drawings when viewed in reproduction: an aspect that is important in relation to the drawings’ function. Size is also important because it influences the choice and use of materials. Further, viewing the drawings in reproduction makes relational comparison almost impossible.Although the imbalance has been somewhat redressed in more recent texts it is apparent that the signs of use and function of Holbein’s portrait drawings are still not being comprehensively
investigated or acknowledged.Generally, early texts only touched on the theme of the function of the drawings as being preparatory for a painting. For example, whilst Ganz acknowledgedthe fundamental importance and foundation of the drawing as a
springboard to painting he, like others, did not expand on the drawings’ potential to fulfill multiple functions.42