The weather in the winter of 1526 and 1527 was atrocious. According to the chronicler Edward Hall, the first few months Holbein spent in England were dismal: November and December suffered "aboundans of rayne." If nothing else the country was living up to Erasmus's description of it as damp. There was no let-up in the new year, with a daily deluge of bitter wet, and 16 January was notable for "such a grete rayne that there ensued greate fludds which destroyed corne, feldes, and pastures." -- Franny Moyle, The King's Painter (Abrams Press, 2021)
Moyle's book is a successful combination of biography, history and art connoisseurship of 16th century painter Hans Holbein and the court of Henry VIII, where Holbein did most of his impressive portraits. Holbein (sometimes called "the younger" because of his artist father with the same name) was born in Germany, moved to Switzerland where he established himself as a painter of religious subjects until the Reformation began and he started doing portraits as religious patronage started to dry up. Holbein did a portrait of Erasmus, who recommended him to Henry VIII in England. Holbein spent two years in England, returned to Switzerland for four years and then came back to England until his death in 1543 at the age of 46.
Holbein was a Renaissance (Nothern version) man in more ways than one, doing everything from portrait painting to interiors of houses to book illustration and designing of jewelry. As Moyle writes: "Holbein's extensive oeuvre serves up a series of coordinates that chart one of the most fascinating eras in the history of Europe, England and the evolution of Christianity. Through Holbein one meets the humanists rediscovering Europe's classical heritage, the entrepreneurs in the vanguard of publishing and communications, those in the forefront of religious debate and reformation, and the men and women holding the reins of political power. And we see this era through the creative eyes of Holbein.
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