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Here are all the paintings of HOLBEIN, Hans the Younger 01
ID |
Painting |
Oil Pantings, Sorted from A to Z |
Painting Description |
7518 |
|
Adam and Eve f |
1517
Paper, mounted on pine, 302 x 357 mm
Kunstmuseum, Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basle |
42645 |
|
Allegory of the Old and the New Testament |
MK169
ca. 1530 oil Paint on panel 50.2x61cm
National Gallery or Scotland |
76398 |
|
Boy with marmoset |
ca. 1532-1536
Medium Oil
cyf |
63708 |
|
Christina of Denmark |
1538 Oil on oak National Gallery, London Christina's black gown, which she wore as a widow, contrasts strikingly with her flawless ivory skin. The viewer's gaze is also attracted to the well-shaped, delicate hands holding a glove, leaving an impression of perfect charm and elegance.Artist:HOLBEIN, Hans the Younger Title: Christina of Denmark, Ducchess of Milan (detail) Painted in 1501-1550 , German - - painting : portrait |
7586 |
|
Christina of Denmark, Ducchess of Milan sf |
1538
Oil on oak, 179 x 83 cm
National Gallery, London |
40338 |
|
Damstadt Madonna |
mk156
c.1528
Oil on lindenwood
146x102cm
|
63712 |
|
Darmstadt Madonna |
1526 and after 1528 Oil on limewood Schlossmuseum, Darmstadt The presentation of the Madonna and Child is a triumph of illusionism that ranks with the achievements of Van Eyck in Flanders a century before. The play of light over the fluting of the architectural shell behind the two figures carves out the space into which the delicately shadowed crown, hair and face of the Madonna are set. There is no Raphaelesque regularity in the Madonna's features - as with most northern Madonnas, a specific model was used, a friend of Holbein's, one Magdalena Offenburg who also posed for the Lais and whose lifestyle, ironically, was not considered blameless. However, the compelling physical presence and credibility of the figures is the result of artistic means alone; the twisting of the child's body emphasizes the weight the Madonna's arms must carry, and Christ's projecting feet and the foreshortening of his own and his mother's arms stress the space his torso occupies. The combination of warm green and gold also brings the Madonna forward against the neutral .tone of the stonework.Artist:HOLBEIN, Hans the Younger Title: Darmstadt Madonna (detail) Painted in 1501-1550 , German - - painting : religious |
7554 |
|
Darmstadt Madonna (detail) sf |
1526 and after 1528
Oil on limewood
Schlossmuseum, Darmstadt |
7555 |
|
Darmstadt Madonna (detail) sf |
1526 and after 1528
Oil on limewood
Schlossmuseum, Darmstadt |
7553 |
|
Darmstadt Madonna (detail) sg |
1526 and after 1528
Oil on limewood
Schlossmuseum, Darmstadt
|
7556 |
|
Darmstadt Madonna (detail) sg |
1526 and after 1528
Oil on limewood
Schlossmuseum, Darmstadt |
7552 |
|
Darmstadt Madonna sg |
1526 and after 1528
Oil on limewood, 146,5 x 102 cm
Schlossmuseum, Darmstadt |
7588 |
|
De Vos van Steenwijk |
1541
Oil on wood, 47,6 x 36,2 cm
Staatliche Museen, Berlin |
63706 |
|
Diptych with Christ and the Mater Dolorosa |
1520 Limewood, 29 x 19.5 cm (each panel) Kunstmuseum, ?ffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basle Jesus sits exhausted on the plinth of an aedicula decorated in the style of the Italian Renaissance. In contrast to His strong, muscular body, Jesus' face is ravaged by the strains of the Passion, arousing pity in the beholder, who is also summoned to devotion by Mary's gesture towards her Son and by her pain-stricken gaze. Though Jesus wears a large crown of thorns, indicating that the Via Crucis (the Way of the Cross) has begun, the wounds are absent, so that the Crucifixion still lies in the future; he is not yet the Man of Sorrows. The architecture indicates Pilate's palace. Holbein has removed the figures from the scenic setting of the Biblical story and turned the tortured Christ into the main figure of a devotional picture.Artist:HOLBEIN, Hans the Younger Title: Diptych with Christ and the Mater Dolorosa Painted in 1501-1550 , German - - painting : religious |
7548 |
|
Double Portrait of Sir Thomas Godsalve and His Son John |
1528
Resin tempera on oak, 35 x 36 cm
Gemäldegalerie, Dresden |
7549 |
|
Double Portrait of Sir Thomas Godsalve and His Son John (detail) sf |
1528
Resin tempera on oak
Gemäldegalerie, Dresden |
7583 |
|
Edward, Prince of Wales d |
1543
Oil on wood, diameter 32,4 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
7526 |
|
Erasmus f |
1523
Oil on wood, 43 x 33 cm
Mus??e du Louvre, Paris |
42643 |
|
Erasmus Van Rotterdam |
MK169
ca. 1523 Panel 76.2x51.4cm |
63707 |
|
Henry VIII after |
1537 Oil on canvas, 233,7 x 134,6 Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool The top job of Holbein, the court painter, was quite certainly to paint the king's portrait. In the 1530s, Henry VIII had enlarged his London residence Whitehall Palace, and needed a grand picture for it. It was to feature not only him and his wife Jane Seymour, but also his parents, the first Tudor monarchs, and was also intended to proclaim the fame of the ruling house in word and image. Since the composition probably adorned one wall of the Privy Chamber, a private chamber accessible only to more intimate members of court, the picture was not aimed at a broad public but a select group at court. No contract for the mural survives, but Henry VIII must have commissioned it in the short time during which he was married to Jane Seymour, in other words between May 30, 1536, and October 12, 1537. Both Catharine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn were already dead; in showing Jane together with Elizabeth of York and the Tudor monarchs in the picture, Henry's new connection was presented as the only legitimate one and the children of the marriage as the only rightful heirs. Possibly the picture was commissioned shortly after the wedding: in the surviving section of the cartoon a cartouche is included in the frieze, displaying the initials of Henry and Jane linked in a love knot. According to the copy by the painter Remigius van Leemput (1607-1675) in 1667, the cartouche on the mural as painted bore the date 1537. The picture shows a copy of the figure of Henry VIII from the left side of the mural which was destroyed in the Whitehall fire in 1698. Henry VIII stands in the foreground like a colossus with legs apart and knees straight. His broad shoulders, emphasized by his heavy clothing, exaggerate the already unusual physical presence of this large man, whose sex is additionally stressed by a prominent girdle and codpiece. The king thus appears as the epitome of vigour and potency. This stance, with legs apart and knees locked straight, is very uncommon for the portrait of a king. The reason may be that at the time spread legs were considered improper, as the Frankfurt scholar Jodocus Willich ( 1501-15 52) explains in a treatise on gestures first published in Basle in 1540. However, in visual art the stance was also associated with triumphant heroes; St. George, for example, can stand in a comparable pose after overcoming the dragon.Artist:HOLBEIN, Hans the Younger Title: Henry VIII Painted in 1501-1550 , German - - painting : portrait |
7581 |
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Henry VIII and the Barber Surgeons sf |
c. 1543
Oak, 180,3 x 312,4 cm
Royal College of Surgeons of England, London |
7582 |
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Henry VIII and the Barber Surgeons sf |
c. 1543
Paper mounted on canvas, 160 x 280 cm
Royal College of Surgeons of England, London |
7571 |
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Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve (The Ambassadors) sf |
1533
Oil on oak, 207 x 209 cm
National Gallery, London |
7542 |
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Lais of Corinth sg |
1526
Limewood, 34,6 x 26,8 cm
Kunstmuseum, Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basle |
7529 |
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Noli me Tangere (detail th |
c. 1524
Oil on oak panel
Royal Collection, Hampton Court |
7528 |
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Noli me Tangere f |
1524
Oil on wood, 76,8 x 94,9 cm
Royal Collection, Hampton Court |
7547 |
|
Portrait of a Lady with a Squirrel and a Starling (detail) sf |
1527-28
Oil on oak
National Gallery, London |
7587 |
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Portrait of a Man Holding Gloves and Letter sg |
c. 1540
Oil on wood, 32,5 x 26 cm
Kunstmuseum, Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basle |
41319 |
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Portrait of a Member of the Wedigh Family |
mk161
Tempera and oil on wood
16x12
|
7559 |
|
Portrait of a Member of the Wedigh Family sf |
1532
Oil on wood, 42,2 x 32,4 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
7564 |
|
Portrait of a Member of the Wedigh Family sf |
1533
Oak, 39 x 30 cm
Staatliche Museen, Berlin |
82385 |
|
Portrait of a Young Woman with a White Coif |
1541(1541)
Medium Oil and tempera on panel
Dimensions 11.11 cm (4.4 in)
cyf |
80911 |
|
Portrait of an English Lady |
ca. 1533 - 1536
Medium Oil and tempera on oak
Dimensions 29.8 x 24.8 cm
cyf |
63722 |
|
Portrait of an Unknown Lady |
1541 Vellum mounted on playing card, diameter 5,1 cm Royal Collection, Windsor The first portrait miniatures were produced in France, their precursors being the small circular works commissioned by Francis I to celebrate the victory of Marignano in 1515. Jean Clouet was among the early practitioners of this format, which seems to have arrived in England by 1526 in the form of French royal portraits. Ten years elapsed before Holbein's contribution, but his work marks an immediate advance over the productions of earlier native practitioners like Lucas Horenbout. The small scale and different medium - vellum mounted on playing card (and termed `miniature' because of the lead, Latin minium, used in the paint) did nothing to hamper Holbein's sturdy realism. The identity of the lady is uncertain - the Romantic view of the 1840s judged it to be a portrait of Henry VIII's tragic fifth wife, Catherine Howard, executed for alleged adultery, although no ascertainable portrait of her exists elsewhere. What is certain is that Holbein's powers of characterization lost nothing in the confined space. Features of his late style include the clarity and simplicity of the background, often eschewing even the standard biographical information so as to maintain as direct a perception of the sitter as possible.Artist:HOLBEIN, Hans the Younger Title: Portrait of an Unknown Lady Painted in 1501-1550 , German - - painting : portrait |
7577 |
|
Portrait of Anne of Cleves sf |
c. 1539
Parchment mounted on canvas, 65 x 48 cm
Mus??e du Louvre, Paris |
7520 |
|
Portrait of Benedikt von Hertenstein af |
1517
Paper, mounted on wood, 52,4 x 38,1 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
7521 |
|
Portrait of Bonifacius Amerbach a |
1519
Oil on pinewood, 28,5 x 27,4 cm
Kunstmuseum, Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basle |
7580 |
|
Portrait of Catherine Howard s |
1540-41
Oil on wood, 74 x 51 cm
Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio |
7570 |
|
Portrait of Charles de Solier, Lord of Morette ag |
1534-35
Oak, 92,5 x 75,4 cm
Gemäldegalerie, Dresden
|
7565 |
|
Portrait of Derich Born af |
1533
Oil on oak, 60,3 x 45,1 cm
Royal Collection, Windsor |
7567 |
|
Portrait of Dirk Tybis fgbs |
1533
Oil on oak, 47,7 x 34,8 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
63721 |
|
Portrait of Dorothea Meyer |
Kannengiesser 1516 Limewood, 38,5 x 30,8 cm Kunstmuseum, ?ffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basle There is a companion-piece of this painting, the portrait of the sitter's husband, Jakob Meyer zum Hasen. The architecture provides a link between the two portraits and creates a shared space for the figures; prior to Holbein, such a pictorial concept was unknown in Basle panel painting. The same applies to the decorative elements on the architecture, derived from the Italian Renaissance, such as the coffered vault and the acanthus leaf frieze, which incorporates two putti. The gilded coffering and pillar enhance the appearance of sober opulence in this striking and forthright depiction of Dorothea Kannengiesser, the second wife of Jakob Meyer. Their double-portrait, signed and dated 1516, was probably commissioned to celebrate Meyer's election as burgomaster. This had crucial repercussions for Holbein's career; evidently pleased with such an impressive diptych from so young an artist, Meyer gained Holbein numerous commissions in the following few years. Meyer was a member of the increasingly important mercantile class in Basle and the first of its members to achieve significant administrative power. (The coin he holds signifies his money-dealing role and also perhaps Basle's new-found permission to mint coins.) His friends and colleagues were therefore in the financial position to aid Holbein through their patronage. Meyer's tenure was brief, however - in 1521 he was impeached for accepting a larger bribe than was permitted from the French, imprisoned when he protested at his treatment and barred from office thereafter. He remained a Catholic after the city's secession to the reformed religion and led the Catholic party in the city: Holbein would perceive such strength of character again, in the analogous determination of Sir Thomas More to remain true to his faith .Artist:HOLBEIN, Hans the Younger Title: Portrait of Dorothea Meyer, n?e Kannengiesser Painted in 1501-1550 , German - - painting : portrait |
7517 |
|
Portrait of Dorothea Meyer, nee Kannengiesser sf |
1516
Limewood, 38,5 x 30,8 cm
Kunstmuseum, Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basle |
7594 |
|
Portrait of Duke Antony the Good of Lorraine sf |
c. 1543
Oil on oak, 51 x 37 cm
Staatliche Museen, Berlin |
7578 |
|
Portrait of Edward, Prince of Wales sg |
c. 1539
Oil on oak, 57 x 44 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington
|
82846 |
|
Portrait of Elihu Yale |
Date 1717
cyf |
7558 |
|
Portrait of Erasmus of Rotterdam sf |
1530
Oil on wood, 33 x 25 cm
Galleria Nazionale, Parma |
7527 |
|
Portrait of Erasmus of Rotterdam sg |
1523
Wood, 76 x 51 cm
National Gallery, London |
7590 |
|
Portrait of Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey s |
1541-43
Oil on wood, 55,5 x 44 cm
Museu de Arte, São Paolo |
52042 |
|
Portrait of Henry VIII |
1536
Oil on wood,
28 x 19 cm |
7579 |
|
Portrait of Henry VIII dg |
1540
Oil on panel, 88,5 x 74,5 cm
Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome |
7576 |
|
Portrait of Henry VIII SG |
1536
Oil on wood, 28 x 19 cm
Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Madrid |
7516 |
|
Portrait of Jakob Meyer zum Hasen |
1516
Limewood, 38,5 x 30,8 cm
Kunstmuseum, Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basle |
52046 |
|
Portrait of Jane Pemberton |
c. 1540
Vellum mounted on playing card, diameter 5,3 cm |
7593 |
|
Portrait of John Chambers dg |
1543
Oil on oak, 58 x 39,7 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
7592 |
|
Portrait of Lady Margaret Butts sg |
1543
Oil on wood, 46 x 37 cm
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston |
7544 |
|
Portrait of Lady Mary Guildford sf |
1527
Oak, 87 x 70,5 cm
Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis |
52043 |
|
Portrait of Margaret Wyatt, Lady Lee |
c. 1540
Oil on wood,
42,5 x 32,7 cm |
7551 |
|
Portrait of Nikolaus Kratzer (detail) sg |
1528
Tempera on oak
Mus??e du Louvre, Paris |
7550 |
|
Portrait of Nikolaus Kratzer gw |
1528
Tempera on oak, 83 x 67 cm
Mus??e du Louvre, Paris |
40343 |
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Portrait of Nikolaus Kratzer,Astronomer |
mk156
1528
Tempera on oak
83x67cm
|
82799 |
|
Portrait of Prince Edward |
1538(1538)
Medium Oil and tempera on oak
Dimensions 56.8 x 44 cm (22.4 x 17.3 in)
cyf |
7585 |
|
Portrait of Simon George sf |
1536-37
Oil on oak, diameter 31 cm
Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt |
7543 |
|
Portrait of Sir Henry Guildford sf |
1527
Oak, 82,6 x 66,4 cm
Royal Collection, Windsor |
7563 |
|
Portrait of Sir Nicholas Carew sg |
1532-33
Tempera on wood, 90,8 x 101,5 cm
Drumlanrig Castle, Thornhill, Scotland |
7591 |
|
Portrait of Sir William Butts sg |
1543
Oil on wood, 47 x 36,8 cm
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston |
7519 |
|
Portrait of the Artist's Wife |
c. 1517
Tempera on wood, 45 x 34 cm
Mauritshuis, The Hague |
63716 |
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Portrait of the Merchant Georg Gisze |
1532 Oil on wood Staatliche Museen, Berlin On the rear wooden wall Holbein paints cartellino, supposedly attached to the wall with sealing wax, with a Latin couplet written on it saying: "Couplet on the portrait of Georg Gisze. What you see here is Georg's portrait showing his features; this is how lively his eye is, this is how his cheeks are shaped. In his 34th year, anno Domini 1532."Artist:HOLBEIN, Hans the Younger Title: Portrait of the Merchant Georg Gisze (detail) Painted in 1501-1550 , German - - painting : portrait |
7561 |
|
Portrait of the Merchant Georg Gisze (detail) sf |
1532
Oil on wood
Staatliche Museen, Berlin
|
7560 |
|
Portrait of the Merchant Georg Gisze sg |
1532
Oil on wood, 96,3 x 85,7 cm
Staatliche Museen, Berlin |
7568 |
|
Portrait of Thomas Cromwell f |
c. 1533
Oak, 76 x 61 cm
Frick Collection, New York |
7545 |
|
Portrait of William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury f |
1527
Oil on oak, 82 x 67 cm
Mus??e du Louvre, Paris |
7566 |
|
Robert Cheseman sg |
1533
Oil on oak, 59 x 62,5 cm
Mauritshuis, The Hague |
52593 |
|
Signboard for a Schoolmaster |
1516 Pine panel |
7546 |
|
Sir Brian Tuke af |
c. 1527
Oil on wood, 49 x 39 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington |
7584 |
|
Sir Richard Southwell sg |
1536
Oil on wood, 47,5 x 38 cm
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence
|
52193 |
|
St Barbara |
1516
Wood, 150 x 47 cm |
63711 |
|
St Ursula |
1523 Tempera on wood, 96,4 x 41,9 cm Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe The panel probably belonged to a dismembered altarpiece. It was executed in the workshop of Holbein.Artist:HOLBEIN, Hans the Younger Title: St Ursula Painted in 1501-1550 , German - - painting : religious |
7524 |
|
St Ursula sg |
c. 1523
Tempera on wood, 96,4 x 41,9 cm
Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe |
63714 |
|
The Ambassadors |
1533 Oil on oak National Gallery, London No preparatory drawings survive for The Ambassadors, nor is it clear how the commission for the work came about. Only the character and employment of the sitters are known. The identification of Jean de Dinteville has been aided through a portrait drawing by Jean Clouet of about the same date as the painting. Though Holbein's style changed little over the course of his career, the subtlety and opulence of the colours in this work are different from the starker tonalities he used in Basle. The green backdrop and the pink slashed shirt of the diplomat add a zest which is further enhanced by the juxtaposition of different textures of silk and woven cloth. Like Titian, Holbein was an assured painter of fur (a crucial ability for a court painter) and the contrast between the soft ermine and the glistening metal chain serves as a rich textural counterbalance. The intense realism Holbein achieved here was due to his prodigious visual memory and refusal to let either draughtsmanship or the application of paint alone dominate the execution.Artist:HOLBEIN, Hans the Younger Title: The Ambassadors (detail) Painted in 1501-1550 , German - - painting : portrait |
7572 |
|
The Ambassadors (detail) g |
1533
Oil on oak
National Gallery, London |
7574 |
|
The Ambassadors (detail) s |
1533
Oil on oak
National Gallery, London |
7573 |
|
The Ambassadors (detail) sg |
1533
Oil on oak
National Gallery, London |
7575 |
|
The Ambassadors (detail) sg |
1533
Oil on oak
National Gallery, London |
7557 |
|
The Artist's Family sf |
1528
Oil on paper mounted on wood, 77 x 64 cm
Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basle |
44871 |
|
The French Ambassadors |
mk176
6.8x6.9
|
7530 |
|
The Last Supper g |
1524-25
Limewood, 115,5 x 97,3 cm
Kunstmuseum, Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basle |
63713 |
|
The Oberried Altarpiece |
1521-22 Tempera on wood Cathedral, Freiburg The picture shows a detail of the Adoration of the Magi.Artist:HOLBEIN, Hans the Younger Title: The Oberried Altarpiece (detail) Painted in 1501-1550 , German - - painting : religious |
7535 |
|
The Oberried Altarpiece (detail) sf |
1521-22
Tempera on wood
Cathedral, Freiburg |
7533 |
|
The Oberried Altarpiece (detail) sg |
1521-22
Tempera on wood
Cathedral, Freiburg |
7532 |
|
The Oberried Altarpiece (left wing) sg |
1521-22
Tempera on wood, 231 x 109 cm
Cathedral, Freiburg |
7534 |
|
The Oberried Altarpiece (right wing) sf |
1521-22
Tempera on wood, 230 x 110 cm
Cathedral, Freiburg |
63717 |
|
The Passion |
1524-25 Oil on limewood, 39 x 31 cm (size of detail) Kunstmuseum, ?ffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basle The picture shows a detail of the scene Via Crucis. The background of the scene opens up as a broad landscape. The perspective effect of distance is achieved by traditional colourist means, with the foreground, centre ground, and background being clearly distinguished in brown, greenish, and blue tones respectively. Continuity is provided by a procession of riders and infantry, whose size diminishes steadily towards the background, taking the eye into the landscape.Artist:HOLBEIN, Hans the Younger Title: The Passion (detail) Painted in 1501-1550 , German - - painting : religious |
63718 |
|
The Passion |
1524-25 Oil on limewood Kunstmuseum, ?ffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basle Here the Italianate influences are slightly stronger than in the scene of Christ before Pilate above, though no direct borrowing is observable. Holbein has adapted the smoothly elegant contrapposto stance that Andrea Mantegna had rediscovered in Roman statuary to suggest the nonchalance of the guards, just doing their job. Mantegna's frescoes in the Eremitani chapel at Padua (now damaged) are oblique sources for Holbein's, perhaps through engravings. The parallel placement of limbs, as with the green-cloaked soldier's right leg and the left arm of the guard casting lots, and the antique-style leggings and body-hugging jerkin of the guard in yellow, are southern in design. Otherwise, a sense of northern flurry and activity displaces Mantegna's calm grandeur; the touch of orientalism in the turbaned figure to the right may imply Venetian influence (through artists like Vittore Carpaccio) and contemporary chain-mail, armour and axes underpin the stark emotionalism of the figure of Saint John, with his fists clenched, behind the grieving Virgin; a combination that balances the dourly painful chiaroscuro treatment of the crucified trio overhead.Artist:HOLBEIN, Hans the Younger Title: The Passion (detail) Painted in 1501-1550 , German - - painting : religious |
63719 |
|
The Passion |
1524-25 Oil on limewood, 41 x 31 cm (size of detail) Kunstmuseum, ?ffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basle The picture shows a detail of the scene Entombment.Artist:HOLBEIN, Hans the Younger Title: The Passion (detail) Painted in 1501-1550 , German - - painting : religious |
7537 |
|
The Passion (detail) af |
1524-25
Oil on limewood, 39 x 31 cm (size of detail)
Kunstmuseum, Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basle |
7539 |
|
The Passion (detail) f |
1524-25
Oil on limewood, 39 x 31 cm (size of detail)
Kunstmuseum, Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basle |
7540 |
|
The Passion (detail) sf |
1524-25
Oil on limewood
Kunstmuseum, Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basle |
7541 |
|
The Passion (detail) sf |
1524-25
Oil on limewood, 39 x 31 cm (size of detail)
Kunstmuseum, Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basle |
7538 |
|
The Passion (detail) sg |
1524-25
Oil on limewood
Kunstmuseum, Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basle |
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HOLBEIN, Hans the Younger
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German painter (b. 1497, Augsburg, d. 1543, London).
Hans Holbein the Younger, born in Augsburg, was the son of a painter, Hans Holbein the Elder, and received his first artistic training from his father. Hans the Younger may have had early contacts with the Augsburg painter Hans Burgkmair the Elder. In 1515 Hans the Younger and his older brother, Ambrosius, went to Basel, where they were apprenticed to the Swiss painter Hans Herbster. Hans the Younger worked in Lucerne in 1517 and visited northern Italy in 1518-1519. On Sept. 25, 1519, Holbein was enrolled in the painters' guild of Basel, and the following year he set up his own workshop, became a citizen of Basel, and married the widow Elsbeth Schmid, who bore him four children. He painted altarpieces, portraits, and murals and made designs for woodcuts, stained glass, and jewelry. Among his patrons was Erasmus of Rotterdam, who had settled in Basel in 1521. In 1524 Holbein visited France. Holbein gave up his workshop in Basel in 1526 and went to England, armed with a letter of introduction from Erasmus to Sir Thomas More, who received him warmly. Holbein quickly achieved fame and financial success. In 1528 he returned to Basel, where he bought property and received commissions from the city council, Basel publishers, Erasmus, and others. However, with iconoclastic riots instigated by fanatic Protestants, Basel hardly offered the professional security that Holbein desired. In 1532 Holbein returned to England and settled permanently in London, although he left his family in Basel, retained his Basel citizenship, and visited Basel in 1538. He was patronized especially by country gentlemen from Norfolk, German merchants from the Steel Yard in London, and King Henry VIII and his court. Holbein died in London between Oct. 7 and Nov. 29, 1543. With few exceptions, Holbein's work falls naturally into the four periods corresponding to his alternate residences in Basel and London. His earliest extant work is a tabletop with trompe l'oeil motifs (1515) painted for the Swiss standard-bearer Hans Baer. Other notable works of the first Basel period are a diptych of Burgomaster Jakob Meyer zum Hasen and his wife, Dorothea Kannengiesser (1516); a portrait of Bonifacius Amerbach (1519); an unsparingly realistic Dead Christ (1521); a Madonna and Child Enthroned with Two Saints (1522); several portraits of Erasmus, of which the one in Paris (1523 or shortly after), with its accurate observation of the scholar's concentrated attitude and frail person and its beautifully balanced composition, is particularly outstanding; and woodcuts, among which the series of the Dance of Death (ca. 1521-1525, though not published until 1538) represents one of the high points of the artist's graphic oeuvre. Probably about 1520 Holbein painted an altarpiece, the Last Supper, now somewhat cut down, which is based on Leonardo da Vinci's famous painting, and four panels with eight scenes of the Passion of Christ (possibly the shutters of the Last Supper altarpiece), which contain further reminiscences of Italian painting, particularly Andrea Mantegna, the Lombard school, and Raphael, but with lighting effects that are characteristically northern. His two portraits of Magdalena Offenburg, as Laïs of Corinth and Venus with Cupid (1526),
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