Over-Analyzing Six the Musical: Haus of Holbein
Hans Holbein’s self-portrait, c. 1542-1543.
All My Six Posts!
Over-Analyzing All the Historical References in Six- “Ex Wives,” “No Way,” “Don’t Lose Your Head” “Heart of Stone” “Haus of Holbein” “Get Down”
The Tudor Crown Inspiration in Six’s Logo; The Tudor Fashion Elements of the Costumes in Six (with Painting References)
Six the Musical Wives 1-3: Historical and Modern Costume Inspirations; Six the Musical Wives 4-6: Historical and Modern Costume Inspirations
The Ladies in Waiting of Six: Historical Inspirations and Costumes; Details from Six Costumer Gabriella Slade’s Instagram Takeover
The Early Costumes of Six the Musical: From Edinburgh to Cambridge to London
Updated Six the Musical Costumes for Broadway!; The Shoes of Six the Musical
The Alternate Costumes of Six the Musical; How the Six Alternates Change Their Styling for Each Queen
Virtual Dance Workshops and Q&As with Different Six Cast Members!
I’ve been meaning for a while now to write out analyses of all the songs in Six, looking at all the historical and pop culture references in them, but i’ve had a lot of trouble finding the focus and motivation to do so during all this self isolation. I started this series in like….April? But here we finally are. Hope you enjoy it. I plan on putting up one for each song eventually, but I’m working on other blog projects as well, so it may take a while.
Today, we’re looking at arguably the strangest song in the musical - Haus of Holbein.
Dialogue and lyrics in the show are in bolded font and my commentary is in italics. :) A lot of times, it’s really not relevant who said what line of dialogue, but I’ve inserted the queen’s name if it is.
Copy of a lost painting by Holbein showing Henry VII, Elizabeth of York (Henry VIII’s parents), Henry VIII, and Jane Seymour)
Cleves: Now, seeing as Henry was running out of women to marry in England, he had to look a little further afield. He had to adjust his location settings, if you will.
This lead-in is obviously a joking reference to the number of Henry VIII’s wives, but it actually really wasn’t standard practice for English princes/kings to marry English women. It was more common for royals to marry off their sons to princesses or noblewomen from abroad to secure alliances. Before Henry VIII changed things up, the only previous English female royal consorts were Elizabeth Woodville (wife of Edward IV. Their marriage and the favors shown to her family ended up being incredibly divisive and basically re-started the Wars of the Roses), Anne Neville (whose husband Richard III was never expected to become king), and Elizabeth of York (whose marriage to Henry VII, Henry VIII’s father, was entirely strategic to end the English civil wars known as the Wars of the Roses). Over his life, Henry VIII would marry two foreign noblewomen in the traditional manner (Catherine of Aragon and Anna of Cleves) and four Englishwomen (Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Katherine Howard, and Kateryn Parr).
Double portrait of Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selves (“The Ambassadors,” 1533), by Hans Holbein the Younger
“Location settings” refers to the dating app Tinder, which will pop up again later in this song as well.
To find his next queen, we’re heading to Germany. Where he enlisted the help of the legendary painter, Hans Holbein. Welcome to the house…To the Haus of Holbein, ja!
Ja-yes in German.
This song is a tribute to and pun on German electronic music, as it’s literally written in the form of house music (house/haus - get it? Haus in German LITERALLY means house.). House music is a genre of electronic music which is easily recognizable by a repetitive, insistent beat and a fast tempo. German electronic music in particular has been really influential on the entire genre of house, as it was an active underground subculture before the fall of the Berlin Wall that simply exploded after Germany was reunified. I really can’t say much more about house music or German electronic music, as it’s completely not my area of expertise and I’m terrified of saying something wrong and having music fans come after me, but the association of Germany with electronic music is well known enough that the moment I heard this song, I just started laughing. I personally think it’s the most on point musical pun in the entire show.
Portrait of Thomas More (1527), by Hans Holbein the Younger
Hans Holbein the younger was a German painter who’s now one of the most famous Renaissance painters who worked in England, rather than Italy (like all those guys named after Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles). He first started his work in England as an acquaintance of Thomas More, and later came back under the patronage of Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell. He became King’s Painter to Henry VIII by 1535, but funnily enough, he was actually the junior painter at the time; he was never the highest-paid artist on the royal payroll.
Today, his portraits of various English figures are by far the most famous and well-known from Henry VIII’s time. I’ve included lots of his paintings throughout this post.
Additional references from the phrase “Haus of Holbein”: In renaissance times, it was really common to refer to a noble family as a house. Think, House of Lancaster, House of York, House of Hapsburg, etc. This is a fun reference to this and appropriates the word to refer to Holbein, who wasn’t noble and was from a common family.
It’s pretty common to say that an unknown artist who’s clearly painting in the style of a specific artist and was possibly taught by them is from that artist’s workshop, or is a follower of them. You’ll see attributions along the lines of “after Holbein,” “Holbein’s workshop,” or “follower of Holbein.” Although I haven’t seen “house of” used in this specific way, the entire “house of holbein” concept may possibly refer to this.
copy of a lost painting of Thomas More’s family (1592), by Hans Holbein t
Hans Holbein goes around the world Painting all of the beautiful girls.
From Spain, To France, And Germany.
The king chooses one, But which one will it be?
We know for a fact that Hans Holbein painted Anna of Cleves and her sister Amalia (both in Germany), Louise of Guise, and Anna of Lorraine (both in France), and Christina of Denmark. I couldn’t actually find any portraits of anyone from Spain, but if anyone knows of any, please let me know!
Germany was at the time divided into various states and duchies. English speakers began to refer to the region as Germany in about 1520 and the group of languages as “Germanic.” The name was derived from the Roman term “Germania,” which simply described fertile lands beyond a specific Roman border known as the Limes; Romans also referred to the tribes there as “Germani,” but the tribes themselves did not use the term. Germans refer to themselves as “Deutsche” (which roughly translates to “people” or “nation”) and their country as “Deutschland.” Germany wouldn’t actually exist as a unified country until 1871. (Fun fact: before English speakers referred to the land and people as Germany and Germans, they referred to the area as Almany and Almains, which derives from old French. These terms were obsolete by the 19th century).
You bring the corsets. We’ll bring the cinches. No one wants a waist over Nine inches.
So the undergarments they’re referring to here weren’t actually known as corsets at the time, but stays. This line is obviously used for humor and overexaggeration, but it also illustrates a common modern belief that women in the past were just smaller due to . This isn’t true. There were plenty of “plus size” women in the past.
Also tight-lacing wasn’t a thing then. As this article from Collectors Weekly notes, “Even though so-called “tight-lacing” was popular during the late 1800s, women rarely reduced their waists more than 1-2 inches. Generally, a corset with a 20-inch waist would be worn with a gap in the back, so the woman’s corseted waist measured between 22 and 26 inches. Where did these tales of ladies of the court and their obscenely tiny 13-inch waists come from? Fetish fantasy literature of the era.” If you’d like to learn more about historical corsets and the myths that popular media have spread about them, please watch all the YouTube videos of Karolina Żebrowska and Bernadette Banner (historical fashion YouTube is SO WONDERFUL, Y’ALL).
The term cinches refers to the fact that a corset literally “cinches” in your waist.
A close up of a portrait of Elizabeth I, unknown artist, c. 1575. Elizabeth I was known for wearing white makeup containing lead to cover her smallpox scars.
So what, The makeup contains lead poison? At least your complexion will bring all the boys in.
Yes, Renaissance makeup actually did contain lead. As the National Geographic noted in one article, “Women in the Roman Empire used lead makeup to whiten their faces, and in the 16th century, English nobles did pretty much the same thing. One of the most famous figures to use lead makeup was Queen Elizabeth I, who used it to cover her smallpox scars. This mixture of lead and vinegar that Elizabeth used was known as Venetian ceruse, or the spirits of Saturn. While it may have smoothed a woman’s complexion day-to-day, over time it caused skin discoloring, hair loss, and rotted teeth.”
Ignore the fear and you’ll be fine, We’ll turn this vier into a nine.
So just say “ja” and don’t say “nein”... ‘Cause now you’re in the house,
In the Haus of Holbein, ja! Ooh ja! Das ist gut, ooh ja! Ja! The Haus of Holbein.
Vier in german means four. Ja – yes; nein – No.
Anna of Cleves, by Hans Holbein the Younger, c. 1539
We must make sure the princesses look great
When their time comes for their Holbein portrait!
Anna and Amalia of Cleves weren’t actually princesses, they were the daughters of a duke, so they were duchesses. (Sidenote, go read my friend Heather Darsie’s book “Anna, Duchess of Cleves: The King’s ‘Beloved Sister’”). They are often referred to as princesses but that’s not quite accurate. They were the daughters of the ruler of the Duchy of Cleves, which was a state of the Holy Roman Empire. The HRE was a decentralized, limited elective monarchy, and the emperor really didn’t have a lot of power, so the Duke was effectively the highest authority in Cleves. I understand why people think the daughters of the highest authority in a land are princesses, but…no.
Christina of Denmark, whose portrait Holbein also painted, was a Danish princess, the youngest surviving daughter of King Christian II of Denmark and Norway and Isabella of Austria.
We know what all the best inventions are
To hold everything out. Ja, it’s wunderbar!
This is a terrible pun on the Wonderbra. Wunderbar in german literally means wonderful.
For blonder hair, then you just add a magical ingredient from your bladder.
Urine was really used to bleach hair blonde back in ancient times, but I couldn’t find reliable evidence of it being used in the renaissance. It’s possible that it was? I found SO MANY random blog posts on this and other methods that renaissance women used to bleach their hair, but couldn’t find a reliable historical periodical or a primary source reporting on it. Other reported methods of bleaching the hair in Renaissance Italy were use of natural ingredients such as alum, oak apples, walnut shells and bark, sulfur, and lemons, and exposure to the sun.
Try these heels, so high it’s naughty. But we cannot guarantee that you’ll still walk at forty.
High heels weren’t really a thing under Henry VIII. You got a bit of a low heel under Elizabeth I, but you didn’t really get stratospherically high heels in England until the late 1600s under the Stuarts. And then, it started first as a men’s fashion.
Ignore the fear and you’ll be fine, We’ll turn this vier into a nine.
So just say “ja” and don’t say “nein”... ‘Cause now you’re in the house…
In the Haus of Holbein, ja! Ooh ja! Das ist gut, ooh ja! Ja! The Haus of Holbein.
Christina of Denmark, by Hans Holbein the Younger
The time has come for you to select your bride, your highness! May we present Christina of Denmark? One of the queens goes up on stage to represent Christina. She’s in front of three boxes, and stands in the middle one. Looking for mates, dates, and a British monarch whom to secure the line of succession, winky-face. “Christina” steps over to the right box, where the box lights up red and a sound effect of a thumbs down is played.
Nein? Well, never mind, she already made a match with the Duke of Milan. Okay, next! “Christina” steps down.
This entire segment is based on Tinder, which I’ve never personally used (met my future husband before it became popular), but apparently you swipe one way on a person’s profile if you’re interested and swipe another way if you’re not interested. If you both swipe that you’re “interested,” you get a match and can start talking. It’s interesting that they use this here in the show, but of course the women don’t get to swipe either way, because they really didn’t have any choice in the matter.
Christina of Denmark WAS one of the women painted by Hans Holbein, but apparently she didn’t really want to marry him. She supposedly joked that she would marry Henry VIII if she had two heads. It was said that her aunt, Dowager Queen Mary of Hungary, the Governor of the Low Countries, who served as Christina’s guardian, was also very much unenthused by the match.
She really did go on to marry the Duke of Milan, then after his death, the Duke of Lorraine. She served as regent of Lorraine during her son’s minority until the king of France captured him and took him to be brought up at the French court. She went into exile and later briefly attempted to claim the throne of Denmark.
An unidentified woman, previously identified as Amalia of Cleves, by Hans Holbein the Younger, c. 1539
Your highness, may we present Amalia of Cleves? Another queen steps up to represent Amalia of Cleves. It is the same setup. Just a German girl trying to live the English dream. Hashtag no Catholics, hashtag big dowry. “Amalia” steps over to the right box, where the box lights up red and a sound effect of a thumbs down is played yet again.
Amalia was two years younger than Anna and remained in Cleves for her entire life, never marrying or having children. So the religion of the ruling family of Cleves is commonly misunderstood. They’re commonly described as Protestant (which is referred to several times in Six) but the truth is a bit more complicated than that.
Anna and Amalia’s mother Maria von Berg was a very devout Catholic woman; their father Johann III von Jülich-Kleve-Berg (sometimes known as John III the Peaceful) was tolerant of religious differences and created church regulations with the help of Catholic humanist Erasmus. So it’s likely that the sisters both grew up Catholic. Their eldest sister Sybille was married off to John Frederick of Saxony, who went on to lead the Protestant Schmalkaldic League. Their brother Wilhelm’s religion is a little amorphous, as his four daughters received a Lutheran education, but his two sons received a Catholic education.
Anna received a Catholic funeral in England , as she had requested in her will, and was likely Catholic herself. In contrast, Amalia was so fiercely dedicated to Lutheranism that she apparently annoyed her brother enough to have her go after her with a sword at one point (a servant stopped him, never fear). She refused to go to the Catholic funeral ceremony of WIlhelm’s wife, her sister-in-law. Wilhelm got his revenge eventually by having her interred at a Catholic church in Düsseldorf.
The “Big Dowry” reference is a little odd, as Anna of Cleves actually did not have a dowry, so presumably her sister Amalia wouldn’t have had one either.
Can we DISCUSS how gorgeous Amalia’s eyes and eyebrows are in this painting? As a brown-eyed girl myself, I deeply appreciate this.
Nein? Okay! Who’s next? “Amalia” steps down. The queens discuss amongst themselves quickly. Then Anna of Cleves steps up. Anna! Fantastic! Wunderbar! Your highness, your highness, your highness! We are honoured to present to you Anna of Cleves! The most beautiful woman in all of the Holy Roman Empire! And let me assure you, Herr Holbein has certainly done her justice. This time, the box to the left of Anna lights up green and a thumbs up sound effect is played.
Ah, the good! And may I say you will definitely not be disappointed? Oh, no need to thank us, the pleasure has been ours—In the Haus of Holbein! The Haus of Holbein.
I’ve talked about the “Anne of Cleves didn’t look like her portrait” story before and will talk about it more in depth in the blog post on “Get Down,” but in brief, 1. Holbein was specifically instructed not to flatter the women he was painted, but only to paint what he actually saw, and 2. Holbein kept his job and worked for Henry for years after his marriage to Anna was annulled. So that indicates that the portrait actually really was a good likeness of her. We’ll get into that more later though. :)