Holbein (Phaidon Colour Library)

Hans Holbein the Younger (c. 1497-1543) is renowned for his incisive portraits of Norhern Europe’s courtiers, thinkers and statesmen, but his output was far more various, and included book illustration, large religious paintings and designs for jewellery and court fashions. This fine record of his career examines these varied aspects of his genius and beautifully illustrates the ways in which his miraculous technical accomplishment and attention to surface detail were married to acute observations of an empathy with his human subjects.

For this new edition of Helen Langdon's introduction to Holbein, art historian James Malpas has selected additional illustrations and written detailed commentaries on each colour plate.