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Germany: Self Portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543), c. 1542

Germany: Self Portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543), c. 1542

Hans Holbein the Younger (c. 1497 – 1543) was a German and Swiss artist and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style. He is best known as one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century. He also produced religious art, satire, and Reformation propaganda, and made a significant contribution to the history of book design. He is called 'the Younger' to distinguish him from his father, Hans Holbein the Elder, an accomplished painter of the Late Gothic school.

The Self Portrait is a small drawing by the German Renaissance artist and printmaker Hans Holbein the Younger, completed around 1542-1543, and housed in the Uffizi, Florence. The gold background was added later by a different artist. According to art historian John Rowlands, 'Although this drawing has been enlarged on all sides and heavily reworked, enough of it still shows to allow the assumption that the original work was executed by Holbein. The inscription, also a later addition, evidently records an even earlier one, of which slight traces remain'.

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