Miniatures
by Hans HOLBEIN the Younger

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.

Preview Picture Data Info
Portrait Medallion of Erasmus of Rotterdam
1532
Tempera on wood, diameter 14 cm
Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basel


Portrait of a Man in a Red Cap
1532-35
Oil and gold on parchment attached to wood, diameter 10 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York


Solomon and the Queen of Sheba
1534-35
Vellum, 229 x 183 mm
Royal Library, Windsor


Courtier of Henry VIII and his Wife
1534
Oil on linden panel, diameter 12 cm (each)
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna


Portrait of Philipp Melanchthon
c. 1535
Oak, diameter 9 cm
Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum, Hannover


Portrait of Jane Pemberton
c. 1540
Vellum mounted on playing card, diameter 5,3 cm
Victoria and Albert Museum, London


Portrait of an Unknown Lady
c. 1541
Vellum mounted on playing card, diameter 5,1 cm
Royal Collection, Windsor


Henry Brandon
1541
Vellum mounted on playing card, diameter 5,7 cm
Royal Collection, Windsor


Charles Brandon
1541
Vellum mounted on playing card, diameter 5,7 cm
Royal Collection, Windsor



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



© Web Gallery of Art, created by Emil Krén and Daniel Marx.