Holbein the Younger moves back to Basel…
1519 CE
Holbein the Younger moves back to Basel in 1519.
His brother fades from the record at about this time, and it is usually presumed that he died.
Holbein reestablishes himself rapidly in the city, running a busy workshop.
He joins the painters' guild and takes out Basel citizenship.
He marries Elsbeth Schmid, a widow a few years older than he, who has an infant son, Franz, and is running her late husband's tanning business.
She bears Holbein a son of his own, Philipp, in their first year of marriage.
Holbein is prolific during this period in Basel, which coincides with the arrival of Lutheranism in the city.
He undertakes a number of major projects, such as external murals for The House of the Dance and internal murals for the Council Chamber of the Town Hall.
The former are known from preparatory drawings.
The Council Chamber murals survive in a few poorly preserved fragments.
Holbein also produces a series of religious paintings and designs cartoons for stained glass windows.
In a period of revolution in book design, he illustrates for the publisher Johann Froben.
His woodcut designs included those for the Dance of Death, the Icones (illustrations of the Old Testament), and the title page of Martin Luther's bible.
Through the woodcut medium, Holbein refines his grasp of expressive and spatial effects.
Holbein also paints the occasional portrait in Basel, among them that of the young academic Boniface Amerbach, one of Holbein's first commissions as a master painter in Basel.
Amerbach, a printer's son, had become a friend and admirer of Holbein, as both men mixed in humanist circles in Basel.
Amerbach, who will go on to teach Roman law at Basel University, is also a friend of the great humanist scholar Desiderius Erasmus, who will made him his sole heir.
He will become a collector of Holbein's art, and his collection, expanded by his son Basilius, will form the core of Basel's art museum.
The almost square format of the picture is unusual.
Behind the sitter are a fig tree and a range of snow-covered mountains.
The inscription tablet on the left of the sitter contains Latin verse by Amerbach that translates: "Although a painted face, I am not second to the living face; I am the gentleman's equal, and I am distinguished by correct lines.
He has lived eight periods of three years, and through me this work of art depicts with diligence what belongs to nature".
This is followed by the names of Amerbach and Holbein and a precise date.
(Buck, p. 24; Paul Ganz, Holbein.
The Paintings: Complete Edition, London: Phaidon, 1956, p.
227.)
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