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),   Related Paintings of HOLBEIN, Hans the Younger :. | Darmstadt Madonna sg | The Solothurn Madonna | Portrait of Thomas Cromwell f | Signboard for a Schoolmaster | Lais of Corinth sg |
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Ferdinand Kobell
(born in Mannheim, 7 June 1740; died in Munich, 1 February 1799) was a German painter and engraver. He was studying at the University of Heidelberg when the Elector of Bavaria, admiring a landscape, aided him to devote his entire time to painting. He became the pupil of Peter Verschaffelt. He next studied art in Paris (1768-1769). On his return, he was appointed painter to the Cabinet (court painter), and later professor at the Academy. In 1793, he moved to Munich. He was appointed director of the Mannheim Gallery (1798) but died before entering on his duties.
Maratta, Carlo
Italian Baroque Era Painter, 1625-1713 was an Italian painter of the High Baroque period, active mostly in Rome. Born in Camerano, then part of the Papal States. He came as a boy of 12 to apprentice in the studio of Andrea Sacchi. Like Sacchi, his paintings have a classicizing tone, inspired by the works of the great painters from Parma and Bologna: Carracci, Guercino, and Lanfranco. He developed a close relationship with Sacchi till the death of his master in 1661. He worked alongside Francesco Cozza, and Domenico Maria Canuti in the decoration of the Palazzo Altieri. His first prominent work is an Adoration of the Shepherds for San Giuseppe die Falegnami in 1650. He came to establish one of the most prominent art studios in Rome of his time. Other major works are the The Mystery of the Trinity Revealed to St. Augustine (c. 1655) painted for the church of Santa Maria dei Sette Dolori, The Appearance of the Virgin to St. Philip Neri (c. 1675) now in the Pitti Palace of Florence, The Virgin with Saints Carlo Borromeo and Ignatius of Loyola and Angels (c. 1685) for the church of Santa Maria in Vallicella, and The Assumption of the Virgin with Doctors of the Church (1689) for Santa Maria del Popolo, . His numerous depictions of the Virgin earned him the nickname Carluccio delle Madonne (Little Carlo of the Madonnas). The style of Maratta is a classicized Baroque, more restrained and composed than the styles of Cortona and Carracci, thus more allied to the traditions of Sacchi, Albani, and Reni. He was one of the artists favored by Giovanni Bellori. Maratta was known for his insightful portraiture. In 1650, Maratta was introduced to pope Alexander VII, who commissioned many paintings including one of his greatest works, a painting of Constantine destroying the idols for the Baptistry of the Lateran. This work brought Maratta increased fame in the Vatican, and in 1704 Maratta was knighted by pope Clement XI. Other works include an altarpiece in the San Francesco Saverio Chapel of the Church of the Gesu, in the right transept. In 1679 or 1680, a daughter, Faustina Maratti Zappi was born to Maratta by a mistress,
Maurice Utrillo
French Painter, 1883-1955,French painter, son of SUZANNE VALADON. He was entrusted to his grandmother while his mother posed as a model for such painters as Renoir and Puvis de Chavannes before discovering her own talent for drawing and painting. His father, the Spanish painter Miguel Utrillo (1862-1934), only admitted paternity eight years after Maurice's birth. Maurice Utrillo had no predisposition for art, but when he was 19 his mother took medical advice and urged him to adopt drawing and painting as a distraction from his need for alcohol. In search of a suitable subject, he went to the countryside around Montmagny, a village to the north of Paris, where, between the autumn of 1903 and the winter of 1904, he completed almost 150 paintings, sombre, heavily impasted landscapes, such as the Roofs of Montmagny (Paris, Pompidou). By 1906 the doctor felt that Utrillo could return to Montmartre. His pictures of the streets and suburbs were painted with a less heavy impasto and with lighter tones.