Biography
Find out all about the career of Hans Holbein, the business of painting royal portraits right up to the era of Rolf Harris, and look at the role of today's image consultant.
Holbein's Henry VIII: the basics
The instantly familiar portrait of King Henry VIII, all bull-necked swagger and imposing power, is the earliest image of royalty most of us recognise. Painted as a mural in the Palace of Whitehall in 1537, it was the work of a German artist called Hans Holbein the Younger.
Warts and All? Court artists from Holbein to Harris
After the death of Hans Holbein the Younger in 1543, the role of court artist passed briefly to the Flemish painter Hans Eworth.
Holbein: Tudor spin doctor
When Hans Holbein the Younger became the favoured painter of the court of Henry VIII, he had already established a formidable reputation. The son of one of the leading artists of the German Renaissance, Hans the Elder, and the brother of painters and sculptors, he was the painter of choice for the great and the good in his adopted town of Basel.
