Hans Holbein.

Schutzumschlag berieben, mit Randl�ren, Riss im Schutzumschlag, Bleistiftanmerkung auf Vorsatz, Seiten sehr leicht angegilbt, sonst gut und sauber / dust jacket rubbed, with edge wear, tear in dust jacket, pencil annotation on endpaper, pages very slightly yellowed, otherwise good and clean. - Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/8-1543), one of the most versatile and admired painters of the Northern Renaissance, trained under his father in Augsburg and then worked for leading patrons in Switzerland before settling in England as Court Painter to Henry VIII. This richly illustrated book by Oskar B�chmann and Pascal Griener - the first comprehensive monograph on the artist to have appeared in more than 40 years - is a major advance in our understanding of Holbein�s contribution to European art. The authors reexamine every aspect of a remarkable career, in which they take full account of the artistic and cultural influences that affected the artist and of his friendships with leading humanists like Erasmus and Sir Thomas More, and cast fresh light on many hitherto vexing questions and misunderstandings. Holbein was a hugely ambitious artist, and even during his formative years in Lucerne and Basle undertook to make designs for jewelry, stained glass and woodcuts as well as to paint major altarpieces and portraits. He also carried out several monumental decorative schemes for private houses and civic buildings. In all his commissions Holbein sought to rival the greatest masters of Germany and Italy - notably D�rer and Mantegna - as well as Antiquity, and by the time of his visit to France in 1524 he was determined to secure a position as court painter. This, and the precarious situation he found himself in as a result of the Reformation�s increasing hostility to religious works, drove him to England for good in 1532, where in addition to decorative schemes and Triumphs he both drew and painted numerous unrivalled likenesses of leading courtiers, merchants and diplomats, among which is his celebrated double portrait The Ambassadors. This book offers both a remarkable range of extant visual evidence and a rewarding and scholarly account of Holbein�s oeuvre in its full historical and artistic contexts. In addition, the authors include a reappraisal of the high reputation in which Holbein was held during the centuries following his death, as illustrated by the opinion expressed by the Elizabethan miniaturist Nicholas Hilliard and the searches undertaken by the French collector Charles Patin, and by the remarks and exertions of the wealthy eighteenth-century dilettante Horace Walpole, whose own Gothick- style Strawberry Hill home even contained a richly furnished �Holbein Room� / Contents Chronology, Preface, 1 Artistic Competition and Self-definition, 2 Figure and Movement, Invention and Narration, 3 Monumental Decorative Works, 4 Religious Works : The Making of Erasmian Art, 5 Italian and Northern Art, 6 The Portrait, Time and Death, 7 Holbein�s Fame, Appendix, References, Select Bibliography, Photographic Acknowledgements, Index. ISBN 9780691017433