Teufel teilen einem Einsiedler mit, dass sie der Seele des Kaisers nicht habhaft werden konnten (Werkstatt)

Hans Holbein the Elder's workshop produced a substantial body of narrative panel paintings drawn from hagiographic sources, including cycles treating the lives of saints and sacred legends. This scene from the legend of Emperor Henry II — in which the devil reports failure to capture the emperor's soul — belongs to that moralizing hagiographic tradition that was central to late medieval and early Renaissance devotional culture in southern Germany. Workshop designation indicates that while Holbein the Elder designed or oversaw this panel, the actual execution involved assistants, which was standard practice for large narrative programs.

The workshop panels of Holbein the Elder's circle are identifiable by competent but uneven execution — figures with strong compositional logic but varying quality of facial modeling, suggesting different hands at work on different sections. The narrative clarity of the scene — readable even without textual caption — reflects the master's compositional design.