It was also in England that Holbein began to paint portrait miniatures. He seems to have learned the technique from an artist called Lucas Hornebout, a Flemish painter in the service of Henry VIII. Holbein's miniatures do not differ essentially from his large-scale paintings; his famous miniature of Mrs Pemberton has all the precision of line and clarity of structure of larger portraits. Holbein's miniatures were to be praised by the most famous English miniaturist, Nicholas Hilliard, who later in the century wrote, `Holbean's maner of limning I have ever imitated and howld it for the best'. Hilliard's miniatures, however, transform the miniature from the reduction of a large-scale painting into a jewel-like and daintily patterned objet d'art.
Summary of paintings by Hans Holbein the Younger |
1515-19 | 1519-25 | altarpieces | 1526-28 | 1529-31 |
1532-35 | Ambassadors | Henry VIII and his family | 1536-43 |
drawings and woodcuts | miniatures | Miscellaneous works |