His sketches of heads, now existing at Kensington, of various people who lived at the court of Henry VIII., and among them one of that monarch, are exquisite productions.  Imitations of the original drawings have been published by J. Chamberlaine, fol.  Lond. 1792.  One picture of Holbein is supposed to be in Surgeons’ Hall.  Some wood-cuts to Cranmer’s Catechism (1548) were made by Holbein.  Our biographer, who had never seen the work himself, was led by Walpole [Anecdotes of Painting] to believe, that all the wood-cuts were from Holbein.

With respect to the famous “Dance of Death,” the biographer tells us, what we have already stated, that the painting on the wall of the church-yard at Basel is not the work of Holbein; the costumes are of a time anterior to Holbein.  There was also a “Dance of Death” painted on the wall of a convent at Bern by Manuel, who lived a little before Holbein.  Only on the supposition that the “Dance of Death” at Basel was Holbein’s work, could that of Bern be said to be the first of its kind.  But, on comparing the costumes, it appears again, that the “Dance of Death” at Bern must have been painted subsequently to that at Basel.  No “Dance of Death” of an earlier date was known, until another was discovered on the wall of a convent of nuns at Klingenthal, on the right bank of the Rhine, at Basel.  This bears the date of 1312, and is therefore a whole century prior to the other, which cannot have been painted before the year 1439.  It has been supposed, that the idea of the “Dance of Death” was taken from certain processions very much in vogue during the middle ages; and it is singular enough, that up to this day, in funeral processions in Italy, long white robes are used, which wholly cover the head, with only two holes for the eyes.  But the coincidence of another plague at Basel, which, about the year 1312, destroyed above 11,000 people, renders it more than probable that the artist availed himself of the impression which such a dreadful mortality must have made on the minds of all the surviving, to represent how inexorable death drags to the grave, in terrible sport, rich and poor, high and low, clergymen and laity.

On the authority of Nieuhoff, a Dutchman, who came over to England with William III., Mr. Douce asserts, that Holbein had painted the “Dance of Death” on the walls of Whitehall.  Borbonius might then have had in mind this painting, when he mentioned the “Mors picta” of Holbein; but three biographers of Holbein, Mander, Sandrart, and Patin, were in England before Whitehall was destroyed by fire, and make no mention of this painting, although Mander speaks of other paintings of Holbein, particularly the portrait of Henry VIII., that were preserved at Whitehall.  Mander states, that he also saw at Whitehall the portraits of Edward, Maria, and Elizabeth, by Holbein, “die oock ter selver plaetse te sien zyn.”

Sandrart, whose work was published in 1675, also mentions the paintings of Holbein at Whitehall.  Is it credible, that three travellers, two of whom were distinguished artists themselves, should have been at Whitehall, and seen there the paintings of Holbein, without taking notice of the “Dance of Death,” if it had been in that place?