2-798-672 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The 'New Holbein', at the National Gallery, 1845. 'A Man with a Skull'. Portrait of a man in 16th century dress: '...the money paid, and the Picture the property of the nation, a feeling creeps over the Trustees that the Picture is not a genuine Holbein...it was soon known...that the six hundred guinea Holbein had been withdrawn; some, indeed, going so far as to say that it was not a Holbein, but a picture that would have realised, under Christie's hammer, forty or fifty guineas at the most...wonderment was at its height when the so-called imposition was brought before Parliament. Sir Robert Peel expressed his sorrow, and assured the house that it was the intention of the Trustees to fortify their judgments in future by the judgments of artists and picture-dealers. He could say no more...The name of the individual painted is still more unknown than the name of the painter'. From "Illustrated London News", 1845, Vol VII.