Hans Holbein the Younger

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A 1543 portrait miniature of Hans Holbein the Younger by Lucas Horenbout

Holbein's 1533 painting The Ambassadors

Hans Holbein the Younger (c. 1497– before November 29 1543) was a German artist and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style. He is best known for his numerous portraits and his woodcut series of the Dance of Death.

Early life and career

Holbein was born in Augsburg, Bavaria and learned painting from his father Hans Holbein the Elder. Later he went with his brother Ambrosius Holbein to Basel where he met many scholars, among them the Dutch humanist Erasmus. Holbein was asked by Erasmus to illustrate his satires. He also illustrated other books, and contributed to Martin Luther's translation of the Bible. Like his father, he designed stained glass windows and painted portraits.

Holbein in England

The Reformation made it difficult for Holbein to support himself as an artist in Basel, Switzerland, and he set out for London in 1526. Erasmus furnished him with a letter of introduction addressed to the English statesman and author Sir Thomas More. Holbein painted many portraits at the court of Henry VIII. While there he designed state robes for the king. He also designed many of the extravagant monuments and decorations for the coronation of Henry's second wife, Anne Boleyn, in the summer of 1533.

Several extant drawings said to be of Anne Boleyn are attributed to Holbein. One portrays a woman with rather plump features dressed in a plain nightgown. Some have said that this shows the queen during pregnancy, sometime between 1533 and 1535, but recent research suggests that the subject is actually one of Anne's ladies-in-waiting, possibly Lady Margaret Lee or one of her sisters. It seems more likely that portrait Holbein drew or painted of Anne Boleyn was destroyed after she was beheaded in 1536 on false charges of treason, adultery, incest and witchcraft.

Holbein painted Henry's third wife, Jane Seymour. He also painted Jane's sister, Elizabeth Seymour, who married the son of Thomas Cromwell. This portrait was incorrectly identified as Henry's fifth wife, Queen Catherine Howard, when it was discovered in the Victorian era. After Seymour's death Holbein painted Christina of Denmark during negotiations for her prospective marriage to Henry VIII. The likeness met with Henry's approval, but Christina declined the offer of matrimony, citing a desire to retain her head.

Portrait of Sir Thomas More, by Hans Holbein the Younger (1527).

Holbein also painted Anne of Cleves for Henry VIII. Henry criticized the portrait as having been too flattering; it seems likely that Henry was more impressed by extravagant praise for Anne than with Holbein's portrait. There is some debate over whether or not a portrait miniature of a young woman in a gold dress and jewels is in fact Holbein's painting of Henry's fifth wife, Catherine Howard.

Later years

In his later years Holbein worked in both Basel and London. On one of his stays in London he painted German merchant Georg Giese, brother of Tiedemann Giese, at the Hanseatic League outpost in London, called the Steelyard (Stalhof).

While Holbein was working on another portrait of Henry, he died in London. He made his will on October 7th, 1543, and a document attached to it, dated November 29th, describes him as recently dead.

Portrait techniques

Holbein always made highly detailed pencil drawings of his portrait subjects, often supplemented with ink and colored chalk. The drawings emphasize facial detail and usually did not include the hands; clothing was only indicated schematically. The outlines of these drawings were then transferred onto the support for the final painting using tiny holes in the paper through which powdered charcoal was transmitted; in later years Holbein used a kind of carbon paper. The final paintings thus had the same scale as the original drawings. Although the drawings were made as studies for paintings, they stand on their own as independent, finely wrought works of art.

He painted a few, superb, portrait miniatures, having been taught the art by Lucas Horenbout, a Flemish Illuminator who was also a court artist of Henry.^{[citation needed]} Horenbout painted Holbein in perhaps his best miniature, and the best portrait we have of Holbein, who never made a self-portrait (illustration).

David Hockney has speculated in the Hockney-Falco thesis that Holbein used a concave mirror to project an image of the subject onto the drawing surface. The image was then traced. However this thesis has not met with general acceptance from art historians.

A subtle ability to render character may be noted in Holbein's work, as can be seen in his portraits of Thomas Cromwell, Desiderius Erasmus, and Henry VIII. The end results are convincing as definitive images of the subjects' appearance and personality.

See also

• Early Renaissance painting
• Artists of the Tudor court
• List of British artists
• Anamorphosis

External links and references

• A list of museums featuring the artist - Artcyclopedia.com
• Holbein, Hans the Younger by Nicolas Pioch.
• 2006 exhibition on Holbein in England at Tate Britain - Tate Britain
• Review of Holbein in Britain, Tate Britain - Tate Britain,2006
• Holbein’s The Ambassadors, 1533 (National Gallery London) - smARThistory.org
• Hans Holbein the Younger Gallery - MuseumSyndicate.com
• Holbein's Dance of Death - A pictorial gallery of the woodcut illustrations.

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