Note 3 — Chapter II

There is another and a very different work, an oil painting, in the Royal Collection at Lisbon, signed IOANNES HOLBEIN FECIT 1519, which, if by the younger Hans, would almost put the question as to whether the painter knew the landscapes of Italy, beyond doubt; so southern is the type of its background. The work, however, has been rejected by Woltmann, on the strength of an old photograph not quite perfect. He held the signature to be spurious, and attributed the picture to the school of Gerard David. And he gave to the work the name by which it is now generally styled in English works: "The Fountain of Life" (Der Brunnen des Lebens).3 He did so from the inscription within the rim of the well immediately in the foreground; but a literal translation of this inscription, PVTEVS AQUARUM VIVENCIUM, is, I think, to be preferred: The Well of Living Waters.