A Woman and Children Sitting on a Bench

Holbein the younger, Hans

Summary

A reproduction produced by the Vasari Society of a drawing by Hans Holbein the Younger. The drawing shows a woman and four children in a church interior. The woman is seated on a pew with a baby cradled in her right arm and there is a child seated by her side against the right edge of the composition, looking out away from the group. Two more children are standing towards the left edge of the composition looking up at the woman, and the smaller of these two children is positioned in front of the baby and reaches up towards it. The child sitting on the pew and the child standing by the left edge fo the composition are wearing caps with feathers and shirts with puffed-out sleeves. The woman is poised with her eyes closed and her hair is tucked under a cap. Text from the accompanying booklet produced by the Vasari Society: "No. 18 HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER (b. 1497; d. 1543) A WOMAN AND CHILDREN SITTING ON A BENCH British Museum, 11852-5-9-1. (From the Cosway and Utterson Collections.) Indian ink on paper. 13.4 x 17 cm. (5 1/4 x 6 1/4 in.) The scene is, apparently, the interior of a church. The warm effect of sunshine falling from a window on the right is imperfectly rendered in the reproduction. The note written by a later hand on the margin, 'exaltate Cedrus. H. Holbein,' appears to refer to Ecclesiasticus xxiv. 17 'Quasi cedrus exaltata sum in Libano.' The drawing has hitherto been assigned to Holbein's earlier Basel period, but an interesting sugegstion has recently been made by Mr. Peartree that the woman is Mother Jack, nurse to the Prince of Wales. Both in features and in costume she strongly resembles the drawing at Windsor supposed to be a portrait of the nurse ... The child in her arms would then be Edward, and the date of the drawing 1537; but who are the other children? Their features and costume are consistent with the English origin of the drawing, and such a theory is supported by the Tudor 'linen-pattern' panelling of the back of the bench. On the other hand, the ornament at the end, below the boy's arm, is foreign in character; it may be a piece of Holbein's own invention. C. DODGSON."