HOLBEIN, Hans, THE YOUNGER, German painter : b. Augsburg, 1497; d. London, Nov. 1543. He probably received instruction in painting from his father, and about 1515 went to Basle, where he engaged in illustrating books. At Basle he also painted his earliest portraits, and in 1517 went to Lucerne. Here he painted the house of Jacob von Hertenstein, designed win dows, and executed other works. Returning to Basle in 1519, he became a burgher in the fol year, and during a seven years' resi dence to that city he executed many works of great importance. In 1526 he went to England. Letters from his friend Erasmus, whose famous 'Praise of Folly) he had illustrated, procured him the patronage of the chancellor, Sir Thomas •More, who employed him to delineate the por traits of most of his own personal friends about the court, and introduced him to the notice of Henry VIII, who was a liberal encourager of the fine arts. Among the portraits produced by him during this period are those of More, Archbishop Warham and Bishop Fisher. From 1528 till 1532 he was again in Basle, but in the latter year he returned to England, where he was destined to spend nearly all the remainder of his life. Holbein painted most of the prin
cipal English nobility, whose portraits place him among the world's greatest portrait-painters. Some of his earlier productions, especially his 'Dance of Death,' are also celebrated. In 1538 he completed and published this series. Among the pictures of Holbein's last period are 'The Ambassadors' (1533), and portraits of Hans of Antwerp (1532), English Lady and Gentlemen (1534), Sir Richard Southwell (1538), Duke of Norfolk (1539), Thomas Cromwell, Lady Jane Seymour, Henry VIII (1542, unfinished), and others. Comparatively few of Holbein's pictures are still extant in England, great numbers of them having been destroyed by Puritan fanatics, or sold and dis persed over Europe. Many of them also per ished in the great fire in London in 1666. Hol bein also excelled in wood-engraving, and be fore his visit to England had produced a large number of wood-cuts. He was one of the earli est to paint portraits in miniature. Consult Woltmann, 'Holbein und seine Zeit> (1874) ; Knackfuss, 'Holbein der Jiingere) (1896), and monographs by A. B. Chamberlain (1913), Davies (1903), and Wornum (1867).