German painter (b. 1497, Augsburg, d. 1543, London). Hans Holbein the Younger, born in Augsburg, was the son of a painter, Hans Holbein the Elder, and received his first artistic training from his father. Hans the Younger may have had early contacts with the Augsburg painter Hans Burgkmair the Elder. In 1515 Hans the Younger and his older brother, Ambrosius, went to Basel, where they were apprenticed to the Swiss painter Hans Herbster. Hans the Younger worked in Lucerne in 1517 and visited northern Italy in 1518-1519. On Sept. 25, 1519, Holbein was enrolled in the painters' guild of Basel, and the following year he set up his own workshop, became a citizen of Basel, and married the widow Elsbeth Schmid, who bore him four children. He painted altarpieces, portraits, and murals and made designs for woodcuts, stained glass, and jewelry. Among his patrons was Erasmus of Rotterdam, who had settled in Basel in 1521. In 1524 Holbein visited France. Holbein gave up his workshop in Basel in 1526 and went to England, armed with a letter of introduction from Erasmus to Sir Thomas More, who received him warmly. Holbein quickly achieved fame and financial success. In 1528 he returned to Basel, where he bought property and received commissions from the city council, Basel publishers, Erasmus, and others. However, with iconoclastic riots instigated by fanatic Protestants, Basel hardly offered the professional security that Holbein desired. In 1532 Holbein returned to England and settled permanently in London, although he left his family in Basel, retained his Basel citizenship, and visited Basel in 1538. He was patronized especially by country gentlemen from Norfolk, German merchants from the Steel Yard in London, and King Henry VIII and his court. Holbein died in London between Oct. 7 and Nov. 29, 1543. With few exceptions, Holbein's work falls naturally into the four periods corresponding to his alternate residences in Basel and London. His earliest extant work is a tabletop with trompe l'oeil motifs (1515) painted for the Swiss standard-bearer Hans Baer. Other notable works of the first Basel period are a diptych of Burgomaster Jakob Meyer zum Hasen and his wife, Dorothea Kannengiesser (1516); a portrait of Bonifacius Amerbach (1519); an unsparingly realistic Dead Christ (1521); a Madonna and Child Enthroned with Two Saints (1522); several portraits of Erasmus, of which the one in Paris (1523 or shortly after), with its accurate observation of the scholar's concentrated attitude and frail person and its beautifully balanced composition, is particularly outstanding; and woodcuts, among which the series of the Dance of Death (ca. 1521-1525, though not published until 1538) represents one of the high points of the artist's graphic oeuvre. Probably about 1520 Holbein painted an altarpiece, the Last Supper, now somewhat cut down, which is based on Leonardo da Vinci's famous painting, and four panels with eight scenes of the Passion of Christ (possibly the shutters of the Last Supper altarpiece), which contain further reminiscences of Italian painting, particularly Andrea Mantegna, the Lombard school, and Raphael, but with lighting effects that are characteristically northern. His two portraits of Magdalena Offenburg, as Laïs of Corinth and Venus with Cupid (1526),   Related Paintings of HOLBEIN, Hans the Younger :. | De Vos van Steenwijk | Portrait of a Lady with a Squirrel and a Starling (detail) sf | The Last Supper g | The Oberried Altarpiece (detail) sg | Noli me Tangere f |
Related Artists:
villon
French artist.
Victor-Jules Genisson
painted Interior of Westminster Abbey in 1851
Jan Gerritsz. van Bronckhorst
(1603-1661) was a Dutch Golden Age painter and engraver. He is considered today to be a minor member of the Utrecht Caravaggisti group. According to Houbraken, van Bronckhorst apprenticed as an eleven-year-old with the glass engraver Verburgh in Utrecht. He worked with him for 6 months and worked with two other Utrecht glassworkers before embarking on a Grand Tour in 1620. He did not get far before he was offered work in Arras by the glassworker Peeter Matthys. After six months, he continued on to Paris in 1620, where he worked with the glassworker Chamu. He returned to Utrecht in 1622, where Cornelis Poelenburg taught him to paint. He married Catalijntje van Noort in 1626. He frequented the studio of Gerard van Honthorst. In 1647 he moved to Amsterdam where he created the stained glass windows and the organ doors (almost the only area in a Calvinist church where figurative painting was sometimes allowed) of the Nieuwe Kerk (finished in 1655). He has been described as the last of the great stained glass painters in Holland.. Unlike his work for churches, his secular paintings show the influence of Caravaggio, and also show a striking appeal to sensuality. Among his pupils are counted his sons Jan Jansz and Gerrit Jansz, and Cesar van Everdingen.