Holbein
Category: Books
Holbein Details
Reviews
The other reviewer got the paperback edition and I was surprised when I clicked to see not just a different cover--not that uncommon--but a different number of pages. I wonder what is in my book that is not in the other. I just reviewed this book which is solely about the famous painting on the cover of this reviewed book:Holbein's Ambassadors: Making and Meaning (Making & Meaning)I really like that book as well since there's a lot going on in this painting.But I really like this book as well. There's certainly not as much color as you'd like, but that can be forgiven because I have a bunch of books on Holbein that are mostly or completely in color. My favorite three things in this book are:1) The first thing you see with each item cataloged is where it resides now. The Royal Library in Windsor Castle, The Frick Collection in New York, Offentliche Kunstsammlung, Houghton Hall, The National Gallery (including The Ambassadors on the cover), The National Portrait Gallery (don't get these two mixed up!), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Drumlanrig Castle in Dumfrieshire, Scotland. The beautiful Lady Guildford is in St. Louis while Sir Henry Guildford is in Windsor Castle. And I'm shocked to see that the 1536/7 portrait of Henry VIII to celebrate his marriage to Jane Seymour is in Lugano, Switzerland. My biggest surprises were that that glorious portrait of Queen Jane Seymour is in a museum in Vienna and that (in)famous painting of Anne of Cleves that almost cost Holbein his head wound up in the Louvre!2) Just as I despair of seeing a color portrait, I turn the page and see one of my faves, like the above-mentioned Jane Seymour. Like many portraits of Henry VIII, the vast amounts of goldwork in her shall are devised by actual gold in the painting.3) I've always wondered why barber poles are reminiscent of a caduceus and why dentists and surgeons are associated with barbers. The book explains it! In an unfinished painting at the time of Holbein's death, which had been commissioned in 1541, Henry VIII is granting a charter to unify the barbers' and surgeons' guilds. It's so odd that that combination made it over the pond and remnants can still be seen in the Old West. Think Doc Holiday.This book has good text and a good bibliography. Despite too few color illustrations, I like it.