signs which
have been preserved of his famous allegory of 'the Triumphs of Riches
and Poverty,' painted for the hall of the Easterling Steelyard, the
quarters of the merchants of Allemagne, then traders in London. In
addition to painting portraits Holbein designed dagger hilts, clasps,
cups, as some say after a study of the goldsmith's work of Cellini.

For a long time it was believed that Hans Holbein died after Mary Tudor
succeeded to the English throne; indeed, some said that his death had
been occasioned or hastened by that change in the affairs of men, which
compelled him to quit his lodgings in the palace to make room for 'the
new painter,' Sir Antony More, who came in the suite of Mary's
well-beloved husband, Philip of Spain. There was even a theory,
creditable to Hans Holbein, drawn from this conclusion, that he might
have adopted the Protestant views of his late gracious master, and have
stood by them stoutly, and so far forfeited all recognition from the
bitter Catholic Mary. But, unfortunately for the tradition and theory,
and for the later pictures attributed to Hans Holbein, his will has been
discovered, and that quite recently, proving, from the date of its
administration, his death of the plague (so far only the tradition had
been right), when yet only in his forty-eighth year, as early as 1543,
four years before the death of Henry VIII. In spite of court patronage
Holbein did not die a rich man, and there is an impression that he was
recklessly improvident in his habits.

Holbein had re-visited Basle several times, and the council had settled
on him a pension of fifty florins a year, provided he would return and
reside in Basle within two years, while his wife was to receive a
pension of forty florins a year during Holbein's two years' absence.
Holbein did not comply with the terms of the settlement. About the time
of his death his son Philip, then a lad of eighteen, was a goldsmith in
Paris. Of Hans Holbein's portraits I have two to draw from; one,
painted in his youth at Basle, shows the painter in an open doublet, and
curious stomacher-like shirt, and having on his head a great flapping
hat. His face is broad and smooth-skinned, with little hair seen, and
the features, the eyes especially, rather small for such an expanse of
cheek and chin. The other picture of Holbein to which I have referred
belongs certainly to a considerably later period of his life, and
represents him with short but bushy hair,