Web Quotableonline.com Frasescelebres.org Greatbookscollection.org

Hans Holbein the Younger (c. 1497–1543) was
an artist who painted in the Northern Renaissance
style.

He was born in Augsburg, Bavaria. 



He first 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 Netherlands|Dutch
humanist Erasmus. Erasmus asked him to illustrate
his satires. Holbein also illustrated other books,
including contributing to Martin Luther|Martin
Luther's translation of the Bible. Like his
father, he designed stained glass windows and
painted portraits. The Reformation made it
difficult for Holbein to support himself as an
artist in Basel and he set out for London in 1526.
Erasmus furnished him with a letter of
introduction addressed to the English statesman
and author Thomas More|Sir Thomas More. Holbein
painted many portraits at the court of Henry VIII.
While there he designed state robes for the king.

Holbein 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 sketches are in existence said to
show Anne Boleyn, as sketched by Holbein. One,
however, shows a woman dressed in a plain
nightgown and with rather plump features. Some
have said that this shows the queen when she was
pregnancy|pregnant, sometime between 1533 and
1535, but recent research would suggest that this
sketch is actually one of Anne's
ladies-in-waiting, probably Lady Margaret Lee or
one of her sisters. It seems more likely that any
sketch or portrait Holbein painted of Anne Boleyn
was destroyed after she was beheading|beheaded in
1536, on false charges of treason, adultery,
incest and witchcraft. 

Holbein definitely painted Henry's third wife,
Jane Seymour, and his portrait of her accurately
reflects Jane's appearance (she was not famed for
her beauty). 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.

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

Holbein painted Anne of Cleves for Henry VIII
during marriage negotiations, a common practice in
the age before photography. Henry criticized the
portrait as having been too flattering, but it
seems more likely that Henry was more impressed by
extravagant praise for Anne, rather than 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.

While Holbein was working on another portrait of
Henry, he died of plague.

==Portraits==

Holbein always made a highly detailed portrait of
his subject using pencil, ink and coloured chalk,
now considered artpieces in their own right. He
transferred the outline of these drawings onto the
final painting using tiny holes in the painting
through which powdered charcoal was transmitted.
In later years, he used a kind of carbon paper.
The original drawings were very detailed for the
faces, but in general did not include the hands.
Clothing was only indicated schematically. The
original drawings thus had the same scale
(map)|scale as the final paintings.

==Important works==
* The Ambassadors (Holbein)|The Ambassadors (1533)
* Darmstadt Madonna (art)|Madonna (1526-1528)

==See also==
* Early Renaissance painting
* List of British artists

==External links and references==
Commonscat|Hans Holbein the Younger
*
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/holbein_the_y
ounger_hans.html A list of museums featuring the
artist
* An http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/holbein/
earlier version of this article was loosely based
on an article written by Nicolas Pioch.