Holbein's Drawings at Windsor Castle. Edited by K. T. Parker
(Phaidon Press. 25s.) Holbein's Drawings at Windsor Castle. Edited by K. T. Parker (Phaidon Press. 25s.)
THIS valuable catalogue of the Windsor Holbein drawings is re- inforced in usefulness and interest by the learned introduction of Mr. Parker, the editor, who relates in considerable detail the history of the collection from Holbein's death' in 1543 to the date of its re-discovery in a bureau at Kensington Palace by Queen Caroline in 1727. Incidentally, those purists who carry their punctiliousness about spelling even to the point of pedantry, will be shocked at the lack- of uniformity in spelling a hundred years ago. An inventory of the reign of George II—presumably by a "learned clerk "—in the British Museum lists the collection as: " Books of drawings and Prints in the Buroe in His Majesty's Great Closset at Kensington." In those days the tyranny of the eye had not so prevailed over the ear as to make men so slavish to the printed word as to be deaf to the sound of words and unable to bear any variations in spelling. The plates are finely reproduced in black and white, and the book, with its exhaustive Table of References, is one that is both indis- pensable to students and librarians and a source of admiration and delight to artists and amateurs.
Previous page
