b. 1497, Augsburg, d. 1543, London was a German artist and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style. He is best known as one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century.[2] He also produced religious art, satire and Reformation propaganda, and made a significant contribution to the history of book design. He is called "the Younger" to distinguish him from his father, Hans Holbein the Elder, an accomplished painter of the Late Gothic school. Born in Augsburg, Holbein worked mainly in Basel as a young artist. At first he painted murals and religious works and designed for stained glass windows and printed books. He also painted the occasional portrait, making his international mark with portraits of the humanist Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam. When the Reformation reached Basel, Holbein worked for reformist clients while continuing to serve traditional religious patrons. His Late Gothic style was enriched by artistic trends in Italy, France, and the Netherlands, as well as by Renaissance Humanism. The result was a combined aesthetic uniquely his own. Holbein travelled to England in 1526 in search of work, with a recommendation from Erasmus. He was welcomed into the humanist circle of Thomas More, where he quickly built a high reputation. After returning to Basel for four years, he resumed his career in England in 1532. This time he worked for the twin founts of patronage, Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell. By 1535, he was King's Painter to King Henry VIII. In this role, he produced not only portraits and festive decorations but designs for jewellery, plate, and other precious objects. His portraits of the royal family and nobles are a vivid record of a brilliant court in the momentous years when Henry was asserting his supremacy over the English church. Holbein's art was prized from early in his career. The French poet and reformer Nicholas Bourbon dubbed him "the Apelles of our time".[3] Holbein has also been described as a great "one-off" of art history, since he founded no school.[4] After his death, some of his work was lost, but much was collected, and by the 19th century, Holbein was recognised among the great portrait masters. Recent exhibitions have also highlighted his versatility.   Related Paintings of Hans holbein the younger :. | Detail of | Portrait of Sir Richard Southwell | portrait of henry vlll | Portrait of Henry VIII | Details of Thomas Cromwell |
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Carl Johan Sjostrand
(1789 -1857 ) - Painter
Adriaen van de Velde
(bapt. 30 November 1636, Amsterdam - bur. 21 January 1672, Amsterdam), was a Dutch animal and landscape painter, son of Willem van de Velde the Elder and brother of Willem van de Velde the Younger, the marine painter. Adriaen did not want to become a marine painter so he was trained in the studio of Jan Wynants, the landscape painter. There he made the acquaintance of Philip Wouwerman, who is believed to have aided him in his studies of animals, and to have exercised a powerful and beneficial influence upon his art. Having made exceptionally rapid progress, he was soon employed by his master to introduce figures into his landscape compositions, and he rendered a similar service to Hobbema, Ruysdael, Verboom and other contemporary artists. According to Houbraken, he died while in collaboration with Jan van der Heyden and Frederik de Moucheron, painting animals on their paintings.[1] His favourite subjects were scenes of open pasture land, with sheep, cattle and goats, which he executed with dexterity, with much precision of touch and truth of draughtsmanship, and with clear silvery colouring. He painted a few small winter scenes with skaters, and several religious subjects, such as the Descent from the Cross, for a Roman Catholic hidden church in Amsterdam. In addition to his paintings, of which nearly two hundred have been catalogued, he executed about twenty etchings, several of which appear from their dates to have been done in his fourteenth year. They are distinguished by directness of method and by delicacy and certainty of touch. Van de Velde lived in Kalverstraat, near the Regulierspoort.
Josefa of Ayala
1630-1684,Portuguese painter and engraver. She was the daughter of the Portuguese painter Baltazar Gomes Figueira (1597-1674) and a Spanish lady, Doea Catarina de Ayala y Cabrera. After the restoration of the Portuguese monarchy in 1640 the family moved to Coimbra. Here Josefa began her apprenticeship under her father, a painter of landscapes, still-lifes and religious works, who in 1644 painted the retable of Nossa Senhora da Graea, Coimbra, in the naturalist-tenebrist style he had learnt in Seville in the circles of Juan del Castillo,