Description

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A collection of portraits made during Hans Holbein’s time as the leading artist at the court of Henry VIII.
 
Hans Holbein the Younger (1497–1543) first went to England in 1526, and by 1535 he was King’s Painter to Henry VIII. Holbein at the Tudor Court focuses on the internationally significant collection of portraits by Holbein from that period that is part of the Royal Collection. Along with beautiful reproductions of Holbein’s drawings, miniatures, and paintings, the book offers an introductory essay as the artist of the Tudor court in England, as well as a series of entries on individual works. It delivers insights about the portraits and their subjects, and it also brings in voices from the period, as found in letters, poems, administrative records, and diplomatic accounts, to bring the world of the sixteenth-century English court to life.
 

About the Author

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Kate Heard is senior curator of prints and drawings at Royal Collection Trust. Her previous books include The First Georgians: Art & Monarchy 1714–1760, Maria Merian’s Butterflies, and High Spirits: The Comic Art of Thomas Rowlandson.

Praise For…

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"Accompanying an exceptional exhibition of Hans Holbein the Younger’s drawings at the Queen’s Gallery in London, is a small catalogue written by the show’s curator, Kate Heard. Holbein’s paintings are delightful, but his preparatory drawings of the same sitters are genuinely moving, such is their realism and intimacy, transporting us back almost 500 years. There are profiles of the sitters—the Tudor period’s movers and shakers—but where the catalogue is more interesting is in its details of Holbein’s methods (embellishing certain cheekbones) or things you may have missed ('a touch of greenish watercolour in the eyes')."
— The Art Newspaper, top art books of 2023

"Dr Kate Heard’s catalogue is scholarly, accessible, and extremely well illustrated."
— The Critic