Hans Holbein the Younger

"Ambrosius and Hans Holbein" by Hans Holbein the Elder
Silverpoint on white-coated paper, 10.3 x 15.5 cm

"Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/98-1543) had no biographer. The first mention of him was published in 1604, in Karel van Mander's 'The Book of Painters,' but he did not even know that Holbein had been born in Augsburg, Germany, as the second son of painter Hans Holbein the Elder (1465-1524), and that his uncle Sigmund and brother Ambrosius were also painters.

Sources for Holbein's education are also wanting, but he will almost certainly have been trained in the craft of painting in his father's workshop. His father was among the most sought-after Late Gothic panel painters in southern Germany,  and besides large-scale altarpieces, he also painted a series of portraits that clearly reveal his considerable skill as a portraitist.

Painting a portrait begun with drawing the sitter's features with metalpoint on paper that had been prepared with a fine coating of chalk, and the body - usually only the bust was shown - was carefully modeled with light and shade. A study of this kind which was usually in a smaller format than the final portrait in oil, provided the client with an indication of how the furnished portrait would look and the artist with a working drawing.  Hans the Younger must have learned such standard techniques in his father's workshop, for he used silverpoint for his earliest surviving portrait drawings (see images below).

Over the heads of his two sons in the above drawing, Holbein the Elder wrote 'Prosy' and 'Hanns.' Hans is on the right and is 14, his elder brother Ambrosius is on the left and was about 18 or 20 at the time. The sheet probably comes from a sketchbook in which various portraits were kept."

"Portrait of Jakob Meyer zum Hasen," silverpoint,
red chalk and traces of black pencil on white coated paper

"Portrait of Jakob Meyer zum Hasen,"
oil on limewood panel

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Hans Holbein" by Stephanie Buck.)