f his protege and successor, Johann Froben. He had educated his
sons, too, to worthily continue his life-work and maintain his devout
principles. Bonifacius was the darling of more than one heart not given
to softness. He had been more the friend than the pupil of Ulrich Zasius
at the University of Freiburg, before he went to Avignon to complete his
legal studies under Alciat. Five years after this portrait was painted
he became Professor of Law in the Basel University. "I am ready to die,"
writes Erasmus of him, "when I shall have seen any young man purer or
kinder or more sincere than this one."

Very possibly it was for Bonifacius himself that Holbein painted his own
portrait about this time (Plate 1, frontispiece). It is a worthy mate,
at all events. In the Amerbach Catalogue it was simply called "Holbein's
counterfeit, in dry colour" (_ein conterfehung Holbein's mit trocken
farben_); the frame, too, was catalogued, though the painting was kept
in a cabinet separately when the Basel Museum acquired it with the
Collection.

The vigour and finish of this portrait on vellum, done in crayons or
body-colour, make it a gem of the first water. The drawing was done in
black chalk, and the tints have been rubbed in with coloured crayons or
given with the point where lines of colour were required. The work has
the delicacy of a water-colour and the strength of oils. The broad,
soft, red hat, though so fine a bit of colour, is clearly worn as part
of a simple everyday habit. There is no suggestion of studying for
effect, or even caring at all about it. He wears his hat pulled soberly
down over his brown hair exactly as when he wore it thus about the
business of the day. The plastic modelling of the puckered brow and
the mobile mouth is beautifully indicated. The bluish tone left by the
razor is just hinted. In his drab coat with its black velvet bands, with
his shirt, on which the high lights have been applied, slightly open at
the throat, Holbein himself seems to stand before one as in life.

Among the "early works" of the Amerbach Catalogue there is one which
shows strong traces of Leonardo's and even more of Mantegna's influence
on him at this time. It is a Last Supper, painted in oils on wood. But
it was so mutilated in the iconoclastic fury of 1529, and has been so
cobbled, re-broken, re-set, and "restored" generally, that it can no
longer be called Holbein's work without many reservations. There is also
another Last Su