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 :. | Thomas Cromwell | Lady with a Squirrel | Sir Thomas More | Erasmus of Rotterdam (mk45) | The Ambassadors |
Related Artists:
Frans Pourbus
Flemish Northern Renaissance Painter, ca.1545-1581 Painter, son of Pieter Pourbus. His work consists mainly of portraits and religious subjects, although he also executed a number of landscapes and history paintings. He worked mostly for the wealthy patrician class, and his work was instrumental in spreading the Romanism of Frans Floris (his teacher) throughout the Netherlands. It is probable that Frans Pourbus's earliest teaching was with his father in Bruges, but by 1564 he is recorded as working in the Antwerp studio of Floris. According to van Mander, Frans Pourbus and his fellow student Crispijn van den Broeck together completed an altarpiece by Floris after the latter's death in 1570. In 1566 Frans Pourbus married Susanna, a daughter of Cornelis Floris and niece of his master, and in 1569/70 he became a master in the Antwerp Guild of St Luke, though he retained his citizenship of Bruges. Gortzius Geldorp was his pupil in Antwerp in 1570. For Ghent Cathedral Frans painted Christ among the Doctors (the Viglius Altarpiece, 1571; in situ), which includes life-size portraits of Emperor Charles V, his son Philip, their secretary Viglius ab Aytta (d 1577), Jansenius, first Bishop of Ghent (d 1576), and the Duke of Alba. A decade later Pourbus executed the portrait of the Hoefnagel Family (c. 1581; Brussels, Mus. A. Anc.), shown grouped around a harpsichord playing musical instruments, in which the artist included a self-portrait (playing a lute) at the upper left. The picture was acquired in 1696 by Constantijn Huygens the younger from a cousin, a Hoefnagel descendant, in exchange for a horse; the young girl of 15 or 16 with a parrot in her hand was Huygens's grandmother. An inventory drawn up after Frans Pourbus death lists 20 portraits by him, many from the circle of the Duke of Anjou.
BEHAM, Barthel
German Northern Renaissance Engraver, 1502-1540 Barthel Beham or Bartel (1502 ?C 1540) was a German engraver, miniaturist and painter. The younger brother of Hans Sebald Beham, he was born into a family of artists in Nuremberg. Learning his art from his elder brother, and Albrecht Durer, he was particularly active as an engraver during the 1520s, creating tiny works of magnificent detail, positioning him in the German printmaking school known as the "Little Masters". He was also fascinated with antiquity and may have worked with Marcantonio Raimondi in Bologna and Rome at some time in his career. In 1525, along with his brother and Georg Pencz, the so-called "godless painters", he was banished from Lutheran Nuremberg for asserting his disbelief in baptism, Christ, or transubstantiation. Although later pardoned, he moved to Catholic Munich to work for the Bavarian dukes William IV and Ludwig X. Whilst there, his exceptional talent established him as one of Germany's principal portrait painters, favoured by distinguished patrons such as Emperor Charles V. According to Joachim von Sandrart, he died in Italy during a trip under the patronage of Duke William.
Otto Pilny
Swiss, 1866 - 1936