1. Switzerland, 1516–26.

Hans Holbein (ii) (the younger): Benedikt von Hertenstein (born about…The earliest surviving works by Hans Holbein (ii) are the confidently designed and painted portraits of the Basle Burgomaster Jacob Meyer and his wife Dorothea Kannengiesser (both 1516; Basle, Kstmus.), which were almost certainly intended to be hung as a diptych in joined frames, since the compositions of the portraits are united by the use of a Renaissance-style arch shown in perspective. Two careful preparatory metalpoint studies (both Basle, Kstmus.) have perhaps a slightly more vivacious air than the finished portraits, which lack the sense of movement implicit in the portraits of Hans Holbein (i). In 1517 the younger Hans seems to have been working in Lucerne, where he collaborated with his father on the decoration of the house of Jacob von Hertenstein (destr.) and was probably responsible for the elaborate illusionistic scheme for the façade. (In the same year he also painted a portrait of von Hertenstein’s son, Benedikt von Hertenstein, 1517; New York, Met.) He carried out at least one similar scheme at Basle, on the Haus zum Tanz (1520–25; destr.; designs, Berlin, Kupferstichkab.), owned by the goldsmith Balthasar Angelrot (c. 1480–1544), which incorporated, among Italianate architectural motifs, a line of dancing peasants and a vertiginously balanced rider, whose horse seemed about to leap forward into the street. Holbein was clearly familiar with Renaissance decorative vocabulary, which he used to great effect in other works of this period, notably in his designs for woodcuts, but there is no evidence that he went to Italy, and he may well have gained his knowledge by studying engravings after Mantegna and other northern Italian artists.

Hans Holbein (ii): Erasmus of Rotterdam, oil on panel, 420×314…In 1519 Holbein became a master in the Basle guild of painters, and in the same year he painted the portrait of Bonifacius Amerbach (Basle, Kstmus.). It is clear from this work that his approach to portrait painting had already matured: this head-and-shoulders portrait, which includes a Latin inscription commenting on the fidelity of the likeness, exemplifies his mastery of depth coupled with an extreme economy of design. Of several portraits commissioned by the humanist Erasmus, one type shows him in profile, writing (1523, Basle, Kstmus.; 1523–4, Paris, Louvre; see fig.), while a more elaborate half-length, three-quarter-profile version (1523; Longford Castle, Wilts; on loan to London, NG) depicts him in his study, hands resting on a book inscribed in Greek ‘The Labours of Herakles’. In 1521 Holbein was commissioned by the authorities in Basle to paint the recently completed Council Chamber at the Rathaus with scenes from Classical antiquity and the Old Testament, representing Justice and other Virtues, all set within an architectural framework, which resembled that used by Holbein in his painted house façades but which was here much less exuberant. Only a few fragments of the scheme survive (Basle, Kstmus.), and the drawings (Basle, Kstmus.) do not give a clear idea of the whole; yet his clear organization of groups of figures in a limited space is apparent. Work on the scheme began in June 1521 and continued the following year, but the project was not completed until 1530, after he returned from his first visit to England.

During the early 1520s Holbein’s commissions for religious works included designs for stained glass as well as altarpieces and smaller paintings. The Oberried Altarpiece (1521; Freiburg im Breisgau Cathedral), with its strikingly lit depiction of the Nativity by night, was painted in collaboration with Hans Holbein (i) who, on stylistic grounds, was probably responsible for the donor figures. A dramatic altarpiece of the Passion (1525–6; Basle, Kstmus.), comprising two wings, that almost certainly stood alone, demonstrates Holbein the younger’s mastery of subtle and fluent arrangements of figures in action. Perhaps his most remarkable religious work of this period, however, is the Dead Christ (1521–2; Basle, Kstmus.), which is listed in the Amerbach inventory (1586) merely as the image of a dead man. X-radiographs have show that alterations were made during the course of painting, one of which appears to have been a change from a tomb with an arched top. It is one of Holbein’s most forceful paintings, graphically showing the decaying corpse in a manner unusually expressionistic for the artist: the characteristically elongated side view of Christ’s face is here further distorted by exaggerated foreshortening, starkly emphasizing the stiffness of the corpse’s face and the rigidity of the eye sockets.

The Meyer Altarpiece, depicting the Virgin and Child with Burgomaster Jakob Meyer zum Hasen and his Family (Darmstadt, Hess. Landesmus.), was commissioned by Jakob Meyer c. 1526, but it too was not completed until c. 1530, after Holbein returned to Basle from England; owing to the deaths of Meyer’s two sons, Holbein was required during the second phase of the painting to insert the portrait of Meyer’s deceased first wife, turning the whole into a memorial picture. The groupings of figures, particularly the heads, which are painted with great clarity and delicacy, show Holbein’s careful attention to and rhythmic arrangement of the figures in space; here the shallow space typical of his compositions of this period is broken only by the strikingly foreshortened arm of the Christ Child. Among Holbein’s last works at Basle during this period were the Lais Corinthiaca and Venus and Cupid (both 1526; Basle, Kstmus.), in which the dryness and flatness of his earlier paintings give way to much richer effects: striking colouring (contrasting deep reds, oranges and greens, enhanced by the effects of light and shade on the deep folds of silks and velvets) combined with the use of gesturing hands and tilted, shaded faces with Leonardesque expressions hinting at a smile.

In addition to his religious paintings of this period, Holbein produced drawings and designs for woodcuts. He had already demonstrated his facility with line in the marginal drawings (1515–16) in a copy of Erasmus’s Praise of Folly (Basle, Kstmus.), which he executed with his brother Ambrosius for the schoolmaster Myconius, as well as in numerous title-page designs, which combine fluency of line with a fine sense of balance and economy. In two single woodcuts on the theme of the abuses of the Church, Christ, the True Light and the Traffic in Indulgences (both 1524), Erasmian ideas have been translated into appealingly rhythmic groupings, effectively expressing the need for simplicity in religious belief. The famous Dance of Death series of 49 woodcuts and the Old Testament series of 91 woodcuts (both before 1526; pubd as Historiarum veteris testamenti icones, Lyon, 1538) demonstrate Holbein’s mastery of economy and variety of expressive effect and gesture. In the small Dance of Death series, in particular, a remarkable sense of depth is conveyed by Holbein’s uninsistent use of perspective in both buildings and landscape, while the range of dramatic emotion conveyed in both gesture and facial expression, beautifully rendered by the woodcutter Hans Lützelburger, is exceptional for the medium (see also Propaganda). The Old Testament scenes are even more economical in their use of line and place less emphasis on depth, in keeping with the development of Holbein’s style in the mid- to late 1520s. The Dance of Death series contains references to French architecture, derived from his visit to France in 1524, when he may have been seeking a position at the French court.

2. England, 1526–8.

In August 1526 Holbein left Basle to travel to England via Antwerp, where, through Erasmus, he met the painter Quinten Metsys. In England a further introduction from Erasmus resulted in Holbein painting a head-and-shoulders portrait of Sir Thomas More (1527; New York, Frick), which shows him as a statesman, not a scholar. Its colouring (the green curtain, the rich red velvet of More’s sleeve) and the attention to textures (e.g. the way the stubble on More’s chin glints in the light) continue the direction of Holbein’s interests pursued in the last works he painted at Basle. The sense of depth in the portrait, far more abruptly conveyed in earlier works, is here controlled and softened by the angle of More’s pose and the inclusion of the curtain and parapet, as well as by the subtle use of lighting and cast shadows. Holbein also painted a group portrait of Sir Thomas More and his Family (1526–7; destr. 1752), for which there survive his studies for seven of the heads (Windsor Castle, Royal Lib.) and his sketch of the whole group (Basle, Kstmus.) with annotations for alterations, notably that Lady More should sit rather than kneel; this was the only indication that he intended to change the context of the portrait to a secular one. A later 16th-century copy of the group portrait (Nostell Priory, W. Yorks) by Rowland Lockey not only followed the alterations but also changed other figures, as well as removing rosaries present in the group drawing and giving the sitters Classical texts to hold; it may thus not be a completely accurate representation of the finished picture. What is certain is that Holbein’s final composition was carefully built up from individual sittings, as the drawings show; the picture was not a direct record of the More family together, although it may well reflect particular occasions on which they prayed or read together. As a composition, it differs from earlier, stiffer, northern European groupings in family portraits and representations of the Holy Family. Holbein’s mastery of the effective and rhythmic grouping of a series of figures in an interior, evident in his Dance of Death woodcut designs, is here employed to give a sense of depth, which must have been startling when the work was hung against a wall, as well as a feeling of animated and serious communication between the family members.

Holbein painted further portraits of Erasmus’s friends in 1527, including one of William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury (Paris, Louvre) as a gift for Erasmus in return for the latter’s portrait by Holbein sent to Warham in 1524. Two versions were painted, the only surviving one of which shows the Archbishop in a pose that directly echoes that of Erasmus in the earlier portrait: Warhams’s crozier and mitre stand in place of the background of the scholar’s study in the earlier portrait, and instead of the sitter’s hands resting on a book, they rest, perhaps slightly incongruously, on a cushion. The portrait of Nicholas Kratzer (1528; Paris, Louvre), the German-born Astronomer Royal and tutor to More’s children, showing him half-length, making an instrument, employs a similar compositional pattern. Also in 1527 Holbein painted the Comptroller of the Royal Household Sir Henry Guildford (Windsor Castle, Berks, Royal Col.) and his wife Lady Guildford (St Louis, MO, A. Mus.), both three-quarter-length portraits designed to be hung together, with a curtain rail connecting the two compositions and the smaller figure of Lady Guildford carefully balanced to match the bulk of her husband by the inclusion of a Renaissance-style pilaster. It may have been through Kratzer or Guildford that in 1527 Holbein (‘Master Hans’) was employed on the decorations of a temporary festival building at Greenwich. His large-scale paintings (untraced) included a depiction of the Battle of Thérouanne and a ceiling painting, devised with Kratzer, showing The Heavens. Holbein does not appear to have been offered a permanent position at court, however, and by August 1528 he had returned to Basle, having expended the two years’ absence permitted to Basle citizens without loss of citizenship.

3. Switzerland, 1528–32.

Holbein’s return to Basle was marked by his purchase of a house there in August 1528 and by the completion of two projects he had begun before his first visit to England: the alterations to the Meyer Altarpiece and the completion (1530) of the wall paintings in the Council Chamber at the Rathaus (see §1 above). Preparatory drawings for two scenes painted in this period, Samuel and Saul and King Rehoboam, as well as a fragment of the latter painting (all Basle, Kstmus.), show Holbein moving towards a new, more linear style, setting figures closely together and slightly flattened against the picture plane. Also from this period is Holbein’s moving portrait of the Artist’s Wife and Two Elder Children (1528; Basle, Kstmus.): painted on paper and using an unusual and effective grouping, it reveals his ability to depict emotion as well as his highly fluent and accurate use of line.

In 1529 iconoclastic riots broke out in Basle, and a strict Protestant regime was established. Holbein said that he needed a better explanation of the new Protestant service before he would attend it, but only months later he was recorded among the congregation. He continued to receive commissions from the town council (in 1531 he was paid for painting a clock), but it seems the work offered was insufficiently demanding or lucrative, and by 1532 he had returned to England, where he remained despite the council’s strenuous attempts to make him return to Basle.

4. England, 1532–43.

Holbein returned to England in the summer of 1532 to find that most of his former patrons were dead or in political disgrace, but he evidently quickly found new powerful and influential patrons, through whom he might attract the King’s notice. Between 1532 and 1534 he painted the portrait of Thomas Cromwell (New York, Frick), shortly before the latter became Henry VIII’s secretary, and Holbein was probably the ‘Hans’ recorded in 1533 as painting figures of Adam and Eve made by the goldsmith Cornelis Hays. Much of Holbein’s surviving work of the early 1530s, however, consists of portraits of the German Hanseatic merchants then residing in London. Nearly all are dated, and some contain inscriptions of a type otherwise seen only in royal portraits in England at this time, such as the Latin verses on the portrait of Derich Born (1533; Windsor Castle, Berks, Royal Col.) that allude to the skill of the artist in confusing the distinction between illusion and reality. Holbein had pursued this theme in the complex portrait of Georg Gisze (1532; Berlin, Gemäldegal.): the establishment of illusion by such means as the virtuoso treatment of Gisze’s sleeve shown through the curved surface of a glass vase of flowers is contradicted by such details as the unexpectedly cutaway corner of the table and by the inclusion of a cartellino, which might be attached to the wall or to the painting’s surface. A series of inscriptions and other, probably symbolic, details invoke the idea of the instability of life.

Holbein is attributed with two large-scale commissions for the Hanseatic merchants. A drawing of Parnassus (1533; Berlin, Kupferstichkab.) accords with the description of the Hanseatic merchants’ contribution to the pageantry in the City of London to celebrate the coronation of Anne Boleyn in 1533. Evidence of two large paintings on linen representing the Triumphs of Riches and the Triumphs of Poverty (both destr.) survives in a drawing for the Triumph of Riches (c. 1532–3; Paris, Louvre) and in copies of both—by Matthäus Merian (ii) (1640) and Jan de Bisschop (c. 1670; both London, BM)—indicating that the paintings were executed in grisaille; the slightly flattened yet graceful forms echo the stylistic traits seen in the completed designs for the Council Chamber at the Rathaus in Basle of 1530.

Hans Holbein (ii): ‘The Ambassadors’, oil on panel, 2.07×2.09 m,…In 1533 Holbein painted ‘The Ambassadors’ (London, N.G.), a full-length double portrait of the French ambassador Jean de Dinteville (1504–57) and his compatriot the Bishop Georges de Selve (1509–42). Its most unusual feature, an anamorphic representation of a skull, centrally placed between the two sitters and fully recognizable only from an acute angle, turns the portrait into a memento mori; still-life objects such as a broken-stringed lute and a globe marked with de Dinteville’s château have both personal and more general significance, probably of worldly disharmony, but a final sign of hope and a spiritual dimension are embodied in the carefully angled, semi-concealed crucifix. Once again, the subtlety of Holbein’s skills in manipulating rationally ordered space to purposeful effect is evident: as the viewer’s perceptions of the space depicted in the picture are altered, so the meanings come into focus.

The English Reformation produced few paintings or woodcuts in its cause, but those by Holbein are outstanding examples of his art. An Allegory of the Old and New Testaments (Edinburgh, N.G.) is undated but belongs stylistically and ideologically to the early 1530s; iconographically it develops a theme established in the late 1520s in the circle around Martin Luther and Lucas Cranach (i), although its original patron is unknown. Details of its composition look back to Holbein’s own Old Testament woodcuts, but the vivid, yet subtle colouring, the dramatic lighting and the clarity of organization and compositional detail on a small scale make it a striking reminder of his abilities as a subject painter at a period when he was painting almost exclusively portraits.

The Coverdale Bible title-page, designed for the first complete English translation of the Bible (1535), is one of Holbein’s most accomplished woodcut designs and one of the most important title-page designs of the period. He again used the opposition of the Old and New Testaments, but with the emphasis on the propagation of the word of God. Each scene is set out with marvellous economy of space, displaying great variety of facial expression and suggesting depth without overcrowding. Henry VIII is portrayed in the lower part of the design, with the Hebrew letters for God placed directly above, symbolizing the King’s break with the intermediary of the Church; he distributes the Bible to a group that may include a portrayal of Thomas Cromwell in his role as Vice-Regent. It was probably through Cromwell that Holbein received this commission, which may originally have been one of a group of title-pages, only one of which was published in its intended context. Another small group of woodcuts, satirizing monks, was not published until the firmly Protestant reign of King Edward VI (reg 1547–53).

Hans Holbein (ii): Henry VIII, oil on panel, 280×200 mm,…Holbein was first recorded as the King’s Painter in 1536 and he was recorded as salaried in the royal accounts in 1538 (the sequence from 1531 to 1538 being untraced). He was paid slightly less than another King’s Painter, Lucas Horenbout, although their roles seem to have differed: Holbein was apparently less closely attached to the court (he lived in the parish of St Andrew Undershaft in the City of London) and had a large private clientele. Even if the commissions Henry VIII gave Holbein were relatively few, they were all highly important. The most splendid was for the dynastic wall painting of Henry VII, Elizabeth of York, Henry VIII and Jane Seymour at Whitehall Palace (1537; destr. 1698), London, known from two copies (1667, Windsor Castle, Berks, Royal Col.; 1669, Petworth House, W. Sussex, NT) by Remi van Leemput and from part of Holbein’s own cartoon (London, N.P.G.) showing the figures of Henry VII and Henry VIII. In the original painting the four full-length figures were arranged around a plaque inscribed with Latin verses celebrating the Tudor dynasty (invisible in the surviving fragment of the cartoon, but its presence in the original is confirmed by a 16th-century transcription). The figures were set against a background with a richly ornamental Renaissance-style frieze. Although the details of the original setting are unknown the painting would clearly have made its greatest impact if the architectural decoration and perspectives of the background reflected exactly the room in which it was painted. It was painted for a room described in the following century as the privy chamber, not necessarily identical with Henry VIII’s room of that name. Although Henry VIII is shown in three-quarter profile in the cartoon, he appears in the copies and in other images deriving from Holbein’s portrait as a full-face, entirely frontal and overwhelmingly imposing image. A small, exquisitely painted head-and-shoulders portrait of Henry VIII (1536; Madrid, Mus. Thyssen-Bornemisza) uses the three-quarter-profile image but was evidently derived from the same sitting as the wall painting. The portrait of Henry VIII with the Barber-Surgeons’ Company (1541; London, Barber-Surgeons’ Hall) uses the frontal depiction of the face in an almost hieratic image of the King, who appears on a slightly larger scale than the other figures.

Among the relatively few other commissions for Henry VIII is a deceptively simple three-quarter-length portrait of Jane Seymour (1536–7; Vienna, Ksthist. Mus.), based on the pattern of the wall painting but with a change of costume; it is painted with tightly controlled virtuosity and was presumably intended for the King. A head-and-shoulders portrait of Edward, Prince of Wales (Washington, DC, N.G.A.), which includes a Latin poem by the humanist Richard Morison, was probably the portrait presented by Holbein to Henry VIII as a New Year’s gift in 1539. Holbein’s period of greatest activity for Henry VIII, however, was in 1538–9, when he was sent on several journeys abroad in order to portray prospective candidates for the royal marriage. Three such works survive: from 1538 there is a full-length painted portrait of Christina of Denmark, Duchess of Milan (London, N.G.), in which Christina’s face is highlighted against a restrained blue background and the black of her dress (the placing of her figure, together with the lighting employed, giving an impression of depth and even of slow movement towards the viewer); from the following year is a head-and-shoulders miniature of Anne of Cleves (1539; London, V&A) and a three-quarter-length frontal portrait of her on parchment (Paris, Louvre). All three were probably worked up at home, a supposition supported by the presence of pouncing in the large painted portrai of Anne, indicating that it was made from a cartoon. Holbein also collaborated with goldsmiths on several pieces, such as a gold cup for Jane Seymour (drawings, London, BM; Oxford, Ashmolean), some of which were probably royal commissions and some commissioned by others for the King, for example Sir Anthony Denny’s New Year’s gift of a clock (drawing, London, BM), on which Holbein collaborated with Nicholas Kratzer.

Hans Holbein (ii) (the younger): Portrait of a Member of…Holbein’s patrons outside royal circles included nearly a quarter of the peerage and many of the most important political figures of the day. Although religious painting was certainly not outlawed in England at this early stage of the Reformation, the lack of competent portrait painters in England evidently encouraged the commissioning of such work from Holbein, to the virtual exclusion of other genres. Some of the portraits are recorded only in preparatory drawings, including exquisite studies in a mixture of coloured chalks and ink, or in copies. During this period Holbein also produced several portrait miniatures, outstanding examples being that of Henry Brandon, 2nd Duke of Suffolk and that of a Mrs Pemberton (c. 1540; London, V&A) in which Holbein’s decorative and balanced placing of his sitter, with her hands, arms and dress arranged in his usual unemphatic way within the roundel, is such that the figure could be enlarged without any loss of effect; this is typical of his ability to work successfully at different scales. The surviving full-scale portraits are usually half-lengths and evenly lit, the sitters rarely calling attention to themselves through gesture. They have the simplest of blue–green backgrounds, frequently with gold lettering indicating the date and the age of the sitter and cancelling the impression of background space, as in the portrait of Richard Southwell (1536; Florence, Uffizi). Comparison of two portraits from the beginning and end of Holbein’s second visit to England—for example the Portrait of a Member of the Wedigh Family (1532; New York, Met.) and the Portrait of an Unknown Man (1541; Vienna, Ksthist. Mus.)—shows many stylistic as well as compositional similarities: the method of rendering glossy black satin, the depiction of the eyes and face, the frontal poses and the inclusion of a desk with objects carefully depicted on it. Such similarities refute the notion that Holbein’s style in the 1530s underwent a radical change towards a much flatter, more stylized mode of depiction; the only significant difference is in the simplification of backgrounds and, in this example, the increasing restriction of the space around the sitter, both serving to avoid any sharp background recessions and to limit the impression of depth in order to emphasize the illusion of the painted portrait, an illusion to which inscriptions or objects more often call attention in earlier works.

Although Holbein visited Basle briefly in 1538 (when his splendid clothes and relative wealth were noted), there is no evidence that he subsequently returned to the city, despite his promise to go back.