Hans Holbein

Holbein spent much of his youth in the Swiss city of Basel, where he made woodcuts for book publishers and became acquainted with the decorative style of the Italian Renaissance. He attracted the king’s attention when he settled in England in 1532. He soon won the favour of Anne Boleyn’s family and of Henry’s chief minister, Thomas Cromwell (pictured in Holbein’s painting), who from the start smoothed the young painter’s career as a propaganda artist. Holbein was appointed court painter in 1536, after which he received a series of portrait commissions from various dignitaries, with which he laid the foundations of the long-lasting tradition of English portrait painting.

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