Only this sitter’s name and place of origin (Cornwall, in southwest England) are known today. Yet the complex system of symbols that Holbein developed in this work suggests that the young man might have been a poet conversant in the symbolic language of love. He wears a pink jerkin (close-fitting jacket) and a hat badge decorated with the mythological paramours Leda and the Swan. In his right hand, George holds a red carnation—a symbol of affection and betrothal. Other interpretations are also possible: the carnation may signify Christ’s crucifixion, and the pansies decorating the hat could evoke a meditation on mortality. Recent conservation of the panel allows us to fully appreciate Holbein’s vivid colors and rich surface effects—from the carefully modulated description of George’s skin to the black embroidery of his glossy, puckered jacket.

Holbein drew this image from life, in preparation for the corresponding painted roundel portrait. He employed a delicately layered technique to capture the profile of Simon George of Cornwall, going as far as describing individual wispy hairs that form the sitter’s eyebrow and stubble. Established through the initial sketch, the contour of the head and the facial features could be carried to the painted portrait by tracing outlines onto a panel using paper blackened with chalk. Changes to the composition could be introduced at this stage. In this case, Holbein replaced the stubble on George’s chin with a full beard in the painting, perhaps in accordance with court fashion.

Zoom image

Zoom image

This pair of intimate roundels might originally have had protective lids (like Holbein’s painting of Philip Melanchthon, also on view), or the panels could have been brought together to form a portable capsule. Compact and more affordable than larger-scale likenesses, the portraits are no less refined and detailed than Holbein’s grander works. The man is dressed in royal livery: a red coat decorated with the elaborately embroidered initials H and R, for Henricus Rex, referring to King Henry VIII. The uniform indicates that the subject served the court in an official capacity. The woman’s relatively demure costume allowed Holbein to explore a variety of textures, such as the thick felt or wool bonnet and the fur trimming of her dress.

At the wedding of the German theologian and reformer Martin Luther (1483–1546) and Katharina von Bora (1499–1552) on 13 June 1525, the artist Lucas Cranach presented the couple with a pair of small, round portraits. He and his workshop then produced several copies for the couple’s close friends and relatives. Cranach’s and Holbein’s roundels reflect the popularity of this format in the early sixteenth century and emphasize the portrait’s importance as a gift that commemorated an event or intimate connection.

Compared to most likenesses in the exhibition, this portrait is relatively plain, without prominent attributes that might help reveal the sitter’s identity. Nevertheless, the woman’s status and wealth are indicated through Holbein’s attention to minute details, such as her ornate rings and the pearl-headed pins that attach her bonnet to her cap and close the translucent cambric at her neck. Her costume resembles that of the younger woman in the small roundel portrait, also included in the exhibition, suggesting that this sitter might also have been the wife of an English court official. The woman’s sullen demeanor is underscored by her tense posture and tightly clasped hands, as well as the downturned corners of her mouth..

Derick Berck, a Hanseatic merchant, gazes warmly at the viewer. His name appears on the folded paper he holds, above his merchant’s mark. The small sheet at left quotes a passage from the ancient Roman poet Virgil, which urges Berck and his descendants—and perhaps the viewer—to be steadfast and courageous in business and life. This statement might have been the sitter’s personal motto. Holbein created a sense of pictorial space by positioning Berck between a table, covered with a red cloth, and a green curtain with a hanging cord. The latter motif recalls the background in the portrait of Sir Thomas More that Holbein made almost a decade earlier, also on view in the exhibition.

Like the two other images of Hanseatic merchants here and here, this portrait eliminates all references to the sitter’s activities in trade and commerce. Instead, it emphasizes his familial associations. The man holds folded gloves and wears a signet ring bearing the coat of arms of the Cologne-based Wedigh family (a black chevron surrounded by three green willow leaves), which partially reveals his identity. Holbein animated the still frontal likeness by slightly enlarging the man’s right eye and raising his right eyebrow. The inscription in the background states the work’s date and the age of its subject. Such refined lettering in Roman capitals had become a standard practice in Holbein’s portraiture by the early 1530s.

Although this sitter elected to be portrayed with no identifying attributes, his sober attire—a black gown over a black doublet with satin sleeves and a high-collared white shirt tied at the neck— suggests that he was a member of the Hanseatic League. The work was painted on the occasion of the man’s thirty-third birthday. Reaching this number of years often led to commemorative portrait commissions, as it was the age at which Christ was believed to have been crucified.

Netherlandish painter Jan Gossaert portrayed this merchant within a busy, enclosed space, surrounded by tools of his trade—an inkpot and quill pens, a talc shaker for drying ink, and a pair of scales for weighing coins. In sumptuous attire, the young man radiates self-assurance. Holbein likely encountered Gossaert’s work in 1532, when he was passing through the Netherlands on his way to England for the second time. Although the character of this portrait is very different from Holbein’s other depictions of members of the Hanseatic League, scholars have argued that the painting directly influenced his likeness of the merchant Georg Gisze, now in Berlin.

Like all portrait drawings that Holbein made during his later years in England, this work is relatively small and on paper toned with a light-pink ground. The pink preparation allowed Holbein to efficiently render his White European sitters’ complexions by adding lighter and darker colors to its warm-hued middle tone. Although this man’s identity is unknown, the felt cap and hooded robe suggest that he was a scholar or cleric. Now in the collection of the Getty Museum, this is the only portrait drawing securely attributed to Holbein in the United States.

Nicholas Bourbon (ca. 1503–1549/50), a poet and humanist in the court of Henry VIII, was a friend and admirer of Holbein’s, marveling at the lifelikeness of the artist’s portraits in his verses. In this work, which served as a preparatory study for a woodcut illustrating Bourbon’s Paidagogeion— a didactic poem influenced by the writings of Erasmus—Holbein turned his gaze toward the poet himself. Bourbon holds a quill pen in his quickly sketched right hand, as if actively composing. In keeping with his friend’s interest in Greek and Roman culture, Holbein portrayed him in profile, reminiscent of an ancient coin.