Hans Holbein the Younger (1497–1543) ranks among history’s most gifted and perceptive portrait painters. His objectivity, realism, and superb draftsmanship have influenced artists and commanded the admiration of the world for over four centuries.
This handsome volume presents 44 of Holbein’s finest portrait drawings, created while he worked as court painter to Henry VIII. This artist’s record of one of the world’s most brilliant and tempestuous courts, in drawings and finished portraits executed with inimitable sensitivity and impeccable draftsmanship, is unique in the annals of history and art. Here are revealing, detailed depictions of a gallery of powerful personalities: Sir Thomas More; Jane Seymour; Edward, Prince of Wales; Anne Boleyn; William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury; Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey; Sir Thomas Wyatt; Nicholas Bourbon the Elder; and many others. Informative captions provide identification of the sitters, dates, dimensions of the drawings, and notes on the media.
Today the original drawings can be seen only in the collection of the Royal Library at Windsor. This inexpensive Dover edition makes them widely available to all art lovers. Moreover, every effort has been made to retain the quality of the originals — subtleties of tone and shading, fine detail, and telling nuances of expression. The drawings comprise a priceless archive of important personalities in Henrician England, a record of great value to historians, scholars, costume and cultural historians — anyone interested in that turbulent era and the astounding painter who helped preserve it.