Hans Holbein the Younger

Hans Holbein the Younger (b. c. 1497 Augsburg; d. 1543 London) was a painter and printmaker best known in Anglophone contexts for his portraiture. Certain works, like his series of prints on dying (Ars moriendi) and the paintings The Ambassadors and the Dead Christ in the Tomb, have prompted extensive cultural commentary and reception in larger contexts of critical theory and literature. Holbein’s career trajectory reflects the changes brought to Northern Europe by the printing press and the Reformation. Departing Augsburg and his eponymous but lesser-known father’s workshop in 1515, Holbein arrived in Basel, where he served as an apprentice in the workshop of Hans Herbster and more importantly as a designer of book illustrations for the city’s thriving presses and humanist culture. Holbein remained in the Basel area for some time, becoming a citizen and marrying in 1519. In 1520 he designed and oversaw the impressive frescoes of Basel’s Haus zum Tanz, proving himself capable of executing designs at any scale. In 1524 he traveled in France in an unsuccessful effort to garner the patronage of François I: here, direct exposure to Italian art via members of Leonardo’s circle is certain; the artist also developed connections to potential patrons in Milan, if he did not also travel there. In 1526, possibly in response to growing popular support for evangelical (i.e., Reform-minded) and thus broadly image-skeptical notions—or at least this is suggested by humanist Desiderius Erasmus’s letter of recommendation—Holbein left Basel and, after a pause in Antwerp, resettled in London where he found in Sir Thomas More a major patron. Holbein returned briefly to Basel in 1528, possibly to maintain his rights as an official citizen of that city, but the reduced patronage available in the Reformed city had him returning to London in 1532, leaving his wife and now several children behind once more. During this second stint in the English capital, Holbein’s alliances shifted from the now out-of-favor More to other patrons both at Henry VIII’s royal court with Anne Boleyn and in the Hansa merchants’ community of the Steelyard, dominated by Germans and evangelicals. Holbein’s most important works for the court, pace the famous painting of The Ambassadors (1533) and some other royal portraits, may in fact not survive: he was responsible for designing a great deal of ephemera comprising the court’s pomp and circumstance. Those drawn and printed designs that do survive give a glimpse of a mature master catering to wealthy tastes. But the 1530s courtly and Steelyard portraits are Holbein’s greatest surviving achievements. He developed and hewed to a consistently rich style that synthesized early Netherlandish painting’s meticulous depiction of material finery and an Italianate, antique-inspired mode of full-figured modeling—a style guaranteed to please almost anyone aware of trends in European 16th-century visuality. Applying visual sophistication to ephemeral revels, printed work, decorative designs, and panel painting alike, Holbein is most often described as adaptable, canny, and capacious.