[Illustration:  PORTRAIT OF GEORG GISZE.
        Holbein.]

Holbein has represented Georg Gisze in his mercantile office, at a table, holding a letter which he is about to open, and surrounded by small objects, articles for which he has use in his business and in his every-day life.  This man appears before us in a marvellous pose, among these material surroundings and in this professional scene.  Observe his calm attitude and his almost placid physiognomy:  we notice, however, the firm and decided air of a wealthy and elegant merchant.  And, at the same time, we are sure that the type represented here is not of sudden growth:  everything about him reveals intelligence.

Georg Gisze is young; the painter has told us his name and his age in an inscription on the wall:  he is thirty-four.  We do not lack information about him.  We like him under that air of youthful seriousness; we see upon his face that dawning gravity in which the blossom of feeling already exists, but its plenitude and maturity are still to come.  And in attentively examining our personage we are struck with his reflective and searching glance.  We seem to have a glimpse in him of an undefined melancholy.  This expression surprises us in this man, who ought to be happy at living and who lacks no pleasures that Fortune can procure.

This is a state of mind which is indicated to us, moreover, by a motto traced above his name on one of the walls of his office:  Nulla sine maerore voluptas.  Why this thought?  Is it purely emblematic, or does it contain an allusion to some private matter?  We are led to believe that it is intended as a complementary explanation, that it was placed upon the picture because it was in sympathy with a train of ideas special to the model.  Perhaps it recalls some domestic sorrow, the lively grief left by an absent one, or by some eternal separation.  A moral mystery, which seems to us very attractive, hovers around Georg Gisze.

He has long fair hair confined beneath a black cap; his smooth-shaven face is rather thin.  He wears a rich costume, a pourpoint of cerise silk with puffed sleeves, and, over this pourpoint, a cloak of black wool lined with fur.  The table on which he is leaning is covered with a Persian rug, and, beside the various objects scattered upon it, you notice a bunch of carnations in an artistically wrought Venetian glass.  These carnations, like the motto, awake in us an image, a poetical reminiscence.  Sentiment, Germanic in its essence, mingled with dreams and vague ideals, is introduced into this merchant’s office.

The master has fully displayed with supreme power, and with all the resources of his art, the colours of the costume, the paleness of the face, and the freshness of the flesh standing out from the background of green panels.  He has played with all the various tones of the accessories, book and registers, inkstand, watch, and scales for weighing the gold.  Every detail, with no link missing, contributes to form the perfect harmony of the whole.