Part of a painter's training in the Late Middle Ages was a period of apprenticeship. Hans Holbein completed his in Basle, when, towards the end of 1515, he and his brother Ambrosius probably entered the workshop of Hans Herbst. As his work is largely unknown, we have no idea how far Master Herbst influenced Holbein. However, the importance of being in the university city of Basle should not be underestimated: a large number of humanistically educated people lived there, chief of whom was Erasmus of Rotterdam, who had moved there in 1514.

Holbein's first works to come down to us intact are drawings, dating from December 1515, on the margin of Erasmus's Latin text Encomium moriae (The Praise of Folly). An important step towards his gaining general recognition as a painter must have been the double portrait of Jakob Meyer zum Hasen (1482-1531) and his second wife Dorothea Kannengiesser.

Holbein's name is first mentioned in Lucerne on September 24, 1517. The visit to Lucerne lasted about two years, and was connected with an important commission from the powerful mayor Jakob von Hertenstein (c. 1460-1527) to decorate his newly erected house.

Preview	Picture Data	Info
	Signboard for a Schoolmaster 1516 Pine panel, 56 x 66 cm Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basel
	St Barbara 1516 Wood, 150 x 47 cm Alte Pinakothek, Munich
	Portrait of Jakob Meyer zum Hasen 1516 Oil on linden panel, 40 x 32 cm Kunstmuseum, Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basel
	Portrait of Dorothea Meyer, née Kannengiesser 1516 Oil on linden panel, 40 x 32 cm Kunstmuseum, Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basel
	Adam and Eve 1517 Paper, mounted on pine, 302 x 357 mm Kunstmuseum, Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basel
	Portrait of the Artist's Wife (?) c. 1517 Tempera on wood, 45 x 34 cm Mauritshuis, The Hague
	Portrait of Benedikt von Hertenstein 1517 Oil and gold on paper, attached to wood panel, 52 x 37 cm Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York