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 :. | Henry VIII after | Portrait of Erasmus of Rotterdam sf | Double Portrait of Sir Thomas Godsalve and His Son John | The Oberried Altarpiece (left wing) sg | The Oberried Altarpiece (right wing) sf |
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Viggo Johansen
Danish Realist Painter, 1851-1935 Danish painter. He trained at the Kongelige Akademi for de Skenne Kunster from 1868 to 1875 under Jergen Roed. In 1871 he began to visit the fishing hamlet of Hornbek on the north coast of Zealand, not far from Copenhagen, often with painters such as Peter Severin Kreyer and Kristian Zahrtmann. Here Johansen painted pure landscapes, or alternatively figures from the village traditional population, seen in their homes. A Meal (1877; Copenhagen, Hirschsprungske Saml.) shows an elderly fisherman seated at table eating potatoes, attended by his wife; dull daylight from a window in which a net is drying illumines the frugal interior and worn figures.
BOTH, Jan
Dutch painter (b. ca. 1618, Utrecht, d. 1652, Utrecht Brother of Andries Both. He was one of the foremost painters among the second generation of DUTCH ITALIANATES. While working in Italy he specialized in genre scenes; however, on his return to the Netherlands he concentrated on wooded landscapes bathed in a golden light that illuminates the highly detailed foliage and trees. These realistic landscapes represent his most original contribution to Dutch painting and were much imitated by his contemporaries and by later artists.
Jacob de Wit
(19 December 1695 - 12 November 1754) was a Dutch artist and interior decorator who painted many religious scenes. De Wit was born in Amsterdam, and became famous for his door and ceiling paintings. He lived on the Keizersgracht in Amsterdam, and many of the buildings on the Keizersgracht still have door or ceiling paintings done by him. Since many of the families who lived in Amsterdam in those days had country villas, de Wit also painted in houses in the fashionable areas of Haarlem and the Vecht river. According to the RKD he was the pupil of Albert Spiers in Amsterdam and Jacob van Hal in Antwerp where he became a member of the Guild of St. Luke in 1714. His pupils were Jan de Groot (painter from The Hague), Dionys van Nijmegen, Jan Punt, Pieter Tanje, and the brothers Frans and Jacob Xavery. De Wit died in Amsterdam in 1754.Tako Hajo Jelgersma was his follower.