About Hans Holbein - Famous Portrait Painter

An introduction to Hans Holbein the Younger

This is a compendium about Holbein (1497 - 1543) who was an extraordinarily talented draftsman and painter and one of the most important painters in 16th century Europe.

It shares information about Holbein's drawings, paintings and portraits; museums and art galleries and exhibitions where you can see his work, books and articles about his artwork and links to other online resources for artists wanting to improve their knowledge about he worked.

About Hans Holbein

Hans Holbein the Younger was one of the greatest artists of sixteenth century EuropeHe was a Northern Renaissance painter and portait artist who was also a very fine draftsman, printmaker and designer. He worked for many patrons of significance - including being Court Painter to King Henry VIII

• Hans Holbein the Younger | artist | 1497/8 - 1543 | The National Gallery, London
  Explore information about the artist: Hans Holbein the Younger. See list of paintings at the National Gallery, London.
• Hans Holbein the Younger - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  Hans Holbein the Younger (c. 1498 - between 7 October and 29 November 1543) 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.[1] He also produced r
• Hans Holbein The Younger, German Renaissance Painter, Portrait Artist: Biography, Portraits, The Amb
  Hans Holbein The Younger (1497-1543): German Portrait Painter, Northern Renaissance Artist: Biography, Paintings, The Ambassadors, Erasmus, Portrait of Henry VIII, Georg Gisze of Danzig: Woodcuts, Dance of Death
• Getty Museum - Hans Holbein the Younger
  A biography of the artist Hans Holbein the Younger from the J. Paul Getty Museum's collection.
• Art Renewal Center Museum™ Artist Information for Hans Holbein (Hans Holbein the Younger)
  Hans HolbeinGerman painter, draftsman, printmaker & designerborn circa 1497- died 1543
• Hans Holbein
  Overview of Hans Holbein

A painter of Kings, Queens and other notable people in history

In 1535, Holbein became Holbein was Painter to the Royal Court of King Henry VIII

BOOKS: About Holbein - books on Amazon

Holbein in Museums and Art Galleries - links to online art galleries and online compilations

Portrait of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam with Renaissance Pilaster by Hans Holbein the Younger [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

• Biography
  Biography of HOLBEIN, Hans the Younger (b. 1497, Augsburg, d. ... His father, Hans Holbein the Elder, and his uncle Sigmund were renowned for their somewhat ...
• Artcyclopedia - Hans Holbein the Elder Online
  Hans Holbein the Elder [German Northern Renaissance Painter, ca.1465-1524] Guide to pictures of works by Hans Holbein the Elder in art museum sites and ...
• Yalepress - Hans Holbein - Roskill, Mark; Hand, John Oliver
  This study brings together leading scholars from Europe and the United States to consider the art of Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/98-1543) from a variety ...
• abcgallery - Hans Holbein the Elder - Olga's Gallery
  One of the largest online painting museums. New exhibits daily. Biographies and main works of many famous artists. Excellent quality of reproductions.
• Art Unframed - Hans Holbein paintings prints reproductions
  Hans Holbein paintings to download and print. Over 2000 major artists and 23000 Art works exhibited. Reproduction copies also available, hand painted on ...
• Online Library of Liberty - Hans Holbein
  The Online Library of Liberty is provided in order to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals by making freely ...
• Hans Holbein - Infoplease.com
  Holbein at the Tate: Peter Furtado welcomes a major exhibition of the great painter of Henry VIII and his court at Tare Britain.(FRONTLINE)(Hans Holbein ...
• Royal Collection - Hans Holbein in the Royal Collection
  Hans Holbein in the Royal CollectionThe Royal Collection contains one of the finest collections of work by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/8-1543). With the ability to work in a variety of media, Holbein created painted portraits and miniatures, desig
• Art by Hans Holbein the Younger
  Hans Holbein the YoungerGerman Painter1497 AD - 1543 AD
• Hans, the Younger Holbein - The complete works
  Hans, the Younger Holbein - Homepage. The complete works, large resolution images, ecard, rating, slideshow and more! One of the largest Hans, the Younger Holbein resource on the web!
• Hans Holbein the Younger - Google Cultural Institute
  Hans Holbein the Younger was a German artist and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style.

BOOKS: Holbein's Drawings

Studies of the Hands of Erasmus of Rotterdam by Hans Holbein the Younger[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Exhibitions of Holbein's Paintings and Drawings

• Tate Britain - Holbein in England - 28 September 2006 - 7 January 2007
  Hans Holbein (1497/8-1543) was the first great British artist, and is regarded as one of the greatest artists of all time. He moved to England from Basel in 1526-8 and then again in 1532-43, an extremely turbulent time in English history when all aro
• Holbein in England
  This exhibition presents the work which the German artist Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/8-1543) carried out in England in 1526-8 and 1532-43. Holbein's extraordinary talents as a painter and designer made him one of the greatest artists of sixteenth
• Holbein in England - Room 1 - Holbein's First Visit to England 1526-8
  Holbein arrived in England for the first time in 1526, following a highly successful decade working in Basel. His ability to design and paint wall-paintings and altarpieces and to produce patterns for woodcuts, metalwork and stained glass was founded
• Holbein in England - Room 2 - London 1532-43: Court and City
  Portraits were now strongly in vogue at Henry VIII's court, to facilitate or celebrate marriage, to cement love affairs and to commemorate the worthy. ......As well as painting portraits in oil, large and small, Holbein began to make portrait miniatu
• Holbein in England - Room 3 - Hanseatic Commissions
  Merchants from the trading association known as the Hansa came to London from north German cities such as Cologne, Lbeck, Braunschweig and Danzig to supervise their empires in goods from cloth to wine....In the City of London the merchants were based
• Holbein in England - Room 4 - Designs for Goldsmiths
  Some of the drawings exhibited here show Holbein at work: sketching alternative motifs and suggesting different developments and combinations of the fantastic figures he incorporated into his designs. Others are evidently finished drawings, made for
• Holbein in England - Room 5 - Holbein and Henry VIII
  Holbein was probably working for Henry VIII again soon after his return to England in 1532. Payment books survive only from 1538 onwards and show Holbein received 30 a year paid quarterly, a substantial sum, but no document tells us what his duties w
• Holbein in England - Room 6 - Holbein the Portraitist at Work
  Holbein's individual portrait paintings are nearly all based on studies from life. By the time of his second visit to England he had developed a consistent method of taking a likeness, using pink primed paper to give the flesh tones, probably for spe
• Holbein in England - Room 7 - Holbein's Workshop and Legacy
  Holbein lived in the parish of St Andrew Undershaft in the City of London and may also have worked there. It is probable that he would have needed assistance with preparing paints, and, in the case of large compositions, with preparing his designs an
• Holbein in England - Room 8 - Catholic England, Protestant England
  Holbein enjoyed the patronage of Thomas Cromwell, the King's minister, who, with the Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, pressed for the King's permission to produce an English Bible. Holbein designed the titlepage for the Coverdale Bible of 1535, which it wa
• Holbein in England - Room 9 - The Art of Illusion
  Holbein's portraits were celebrated in their own time for the illusion they offer of the presence of the sitter.Convincing in detail and unflinching in the presentation of old age, Holbein's presentation of the sitters is nevertheless tightly control
• BBC - Berkshire - History - 'Head off' to the Henry VIII exhibition
  Famous for having six wives and beheading two of them, find out more about one of the most popular kings in British history at an anniversary exhibition at his former home and final resting place, Windsor Castle.
• Holbein – real, unreal, super real | The Wired Jester
  Holbein's preparatory sketches were the highlight of the show.Beautiful and luminous, they manage the strange trick of revealingtheir workings as drawings, while also seeming incredibly natural andrealistic,
• MAKING A MARK: Holbein in England - and at Tate Britain
  Last Sunday we visited the 'Holbein in England' Exhibition at Tate Britain. which presents the work of Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543) carried out in England between 1526-8 and 1532-43. It's an exhibition which has received 'rave reviews' but it
• MAKING A MARK: Renaissance Faces at the National Gallery
  I noted how Holbein rarely worried about what to put in the background! Blue green seems to go with everything! ;)
• Oxford DNB: Holbein: behind the portraits
  The works of Hans Holbein, currently the subject of Tate Britain's 'Holbein in England' exhibition, provide matchless images of the characters of Henry VIII's court. To complement this major exhibition, we present the biographies of some of his sitte
• Hans Holbein the Younger | The Royal Collection - The Northern Renaissance: Drer to Holbein
  On display in an exhibitionThe Northern Renaissance: Drer to HolbeinThe Queen's Gallery, Buckingham PalaceFriday, 02 November 2012 to Sunday, 14 April 2013
• National Portrait Gallery - Hans Holbein Re-made: Copies and versions of portraits from the Tudor co
  This display will bring together a selection of the Gallery’s copies of Holbein’s portraits, all of which have undergone technical analysis as part of the Making Art in Tudor Britain project.
• Hans Holbein - His twisted legacy - Telegraph
  Does a mysterious set of copies of his famous Tudor portraits finally reveal why Hans Holbein disappeared without a trace, asks Alastair Smart?

BOOKS: Holbein and England

Henry VIII and Henry VII byHans Holbein the Younger [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commonscartoon for wall painting in Whitehall, 1537. Pen in black, with grey, brown, black, and red wash; paper mounted on canvas, 257.8 137.1 cm.National Portrait Gallery, London.

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This is the only remaining section of a preparatory drawing Holbein made for a mural at the Palace of Whitehall that included life-sized portraits of Henry VIII, Jane Seymour, Henry VII, and Elizabeth of York.

About The Ambassadors

"The Amassadors" by Hans Holbein the Younger [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The best way of viewing The Amabassadors is to use the Google Art Project version which allows you to zoom in and out of different parts of the image.Below you'll find a number of links which explain this painting in more details - and why it is so famous

• The Ambassadors - Google Art Project
  Interactive image of the Ambassadors
• The Ambassadors (Holbein) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  The Ambassadors (1533) is a painting by Hans Holbein the Younger in the National Gallery, London. As well as being a double portrait, the painting contains a still life of several meticulously rendered objects, the meaning of which is the cause of mu
• Hans Holbein the Younger | The Ambassadors | NG1314 | The National Gallery, London
  View: Hans Holbein the Younger, The Ambassadors. Read about this painting, learn the key facts and zoom in to discover more.
• smARThistory.us � Holbein (Ambassadors)
  smARThistory.us - The Multimedia Art HistoryClick here to watch a video.
• Art History Blogger: Holbein's The Ambassadors
  I have long been fascinated by Hans Holbein the Younger's 1533 painting The Ambassadors. This double Renaissance portrait is filled with symbolism both known and unknown.

BOOKS: Holbein's Ambassadors

Individual Holbein Paintings

Below are links to sites which display and/or discuss individual paintings by Hans Holbein

• Conserving Holbein's 'Hans of Antwerp' | Royal Collection Trust
  Conserving Holbein's 'Hans of Antwerp'An account of the conservation of this painting in the Royal Collection and what it revealed about the artist's techniques
• Hidden secrets of Hans Holbein's mystery sitter revealed - Telegraph
  Extensive conservation on a portrait by the royal painter Hans Holbein has shed new light on the true identity of the sitter.
• X-rays reveal true identity of subject in Holbein portrait | Art and design | The Observer
  Modern conservation methods reveal details hidden by early repair work on portrait of Hans of Antwerp - and change identity of sitter
• Hans Holbein's Sir Thomas More - a radical hero portrayed by a Renaissance genius | Art and design |
  Jonathan Jones: When Holbein first arrived in Britain he was invited to portray Thomas More, who was eventually executed for putting his conscience ahead of his king
• Portrait miniature | Holbein, Hans | V&A Search the Collections
  Miniature portrait of Anne of Cleves in a circular turned ivory box, by Hans Holbein the younger, 1539.
• Portrait of Sir Thomas More (Holbein) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  Portrait of Sir Thomas More (Holbein) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Portrait of Sir Thomas More is a painting commissioned in 1527 on oak panel of Thomas More by the German artist and printmaker Hans Holbein the Younger, now in the Frick C

The Dance of Death

There are 41 woodcuts in Holbein's dance of death :1- The creation2- The temptation3- Expulsion of Adam and Eve4- Adam tills the soil5- Bones of all men6- The pope7- The emperor8- The king9- The cardinal10- The empress11- The queen12- The bishop13- the duke14- The abbot 15- The abbess16- The nobleman17- The canon18- The judge19- The advocate20- The senator21- The preacher22- The priest23- The monk24- The nun25- The old woman26- The physician27- The astrologer28- The rich man 29- The merchant30- The seaman31- The knight32- The count33- The old man34- The countess35- The noblewoman36- The duchess37- The peddler38- The ploughman39- The child40- The Last Judgment41- The escutcheon of Deat

• Hans Holbein: Dance of Death
  Hans Holbein: Dance of Death
• Online Reader - Project Gutenberg - The Dance of Death
  The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Dance of Death, by Hans Holbein
• The Hans Holbein Dance of Death
  Supernatural and fantastic imagery of the Middle Ages. Illustrations of Devils, Demons, Witches, & Monsters from the Middle Ages.

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