AN UNDISCOVERED HOLBEIN.
There is at present to be seen in the window of Mr. H. White, a plum- ber and glazier' at No. 8 Carburton Street, Portland • Place, a picture which purports to be a Holbein ; and there it has been for some while past. History it has none : the voucher for its genuineness is itself only; and that voucher is so satisfactory to our eyes, and to those of some artists whose opinions we have heard to the same effect, that we think it should be a service to draw attention to tile work. In dimensions it is small, perhaps a foot high by three-quarters. The person represented is uncertain. He is a gentleman some thirty-three years of age, half-length, beardless, with a staid yet ardent expression- of countenance, short dark hair, large blueish grey eyes, and full lips ; the face on the whole a pecu- liar one. With plumed' cap, and ashen-hued doublet thinly striped with gold, he stands holding a glove in one of his hands, and relieved against a simple green curtain for background. The tone of the picture is sober and deep ; the execution strong and exact, with admirable working in the flesh-in fact, such execution as is found in a genuine Holbein.
That name is one of terror to the Trustees of the National Gallery ever since they consigned the country to the proprietorship of the meagre and puling wooden literality which once libelled it on the walls in Trafalgar Square. Some reparation for that inexplicable blunder has long been owing ; and we think it would do the Trustees no discredit to look into the title of this at any rate possible Holbein, with the view of wiping out the recollection of that always impossible and now detected and exploded one. We have heard that 100/., or even less, might purchase it. That it is a Holbein we confidently believe, as we have already said that it is an excellent work of Holbein's period every artist who sees it will know.
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