German 1497-1543 Hans Holbein Galleries Holbein always made highly detailed pencil drawings of his portrait subjects, often supplemented with ink and colored chalk. The drawings emphasize facial detail and usually did not include the hands; clothing was only indicated schematically. The outlines of these drawings were then transferred onto the support for the final painting using tiny holes in the paper through which powdered charcoal was transmitted; in later years Holbein used a kind of carbon paper. The final paintings thus had the same scale as the original drawings. Although the drawings were made as studies for paintings, they stand on their own as independent, finely wrought works of art. How many portraits have been lost can be seen from Holbein's book (nearly all pages in the Royal Collection) containing preparatory drawings for portraits - of eighty-five drawings, only a handful have surviving Holbein paintings, though often copies have survived. David Hockney has speculated in the Hockney-Falco thesis that Holbein used a concave mirror to project an image of the subject onto the drawing surface. The image was then traced. However this thesis has not met with general acceptance from art historians. A subtle ability to render character may be noted in Holbein's work, as can be seen in his portraits of Thomas Cromwell, Desiderius Erasmus, and Henry VIII. The end results are convincing as definitive images of the subjects' appearance and personality.  Related Paintings of Hans Holbein :. | Prince of Wales | George Gisze | John Fisher Bishop of Rochester | Portrait of Jakob Meyer zum Hasen. | The portrait of Erasmus of Rotterdam |
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Arturo Ferrari
(Milan, 1861 - 1932) was an Italian painter. Initiated into artistic studies by his father Cesare, an associate of Luigi Scrosati, and the painter Mose Bianchi from Lodi, Arturo Ferrari completed his training at the Brera Academy under the guidance of Giuseppe Bertini from 1877 to 1884 while working in the studio of Gerolamo Induno at the same time. He made his debut at the Esposizione di Belle Arti di Brera in 1879 with a view of the interior of Milan Cathedral, thus inaugurating the repertoire of Milanese perspective views that was to be a constant feature of his vast production of oil paintings and watercolours. He soon became the guiding spirit of a poetic and sentimental evocation of "Old Milan" during the phase of transition to the 20th century, when the face of the city changed radically through wholesale rebuilding. A regular participant in all the major exhibitions until 1932, the year of his death, he was the recipient of numerous marks of official recognition and enjoyed considerable success with the public as well as the esteem of conservative critics.
Jacob Heinrich Elbfas
Swedish, born circa 1600-1664,was a portrait painter Elbfas was educated in Strasbourg in a tradition drawing back to Renaissance portraits. He established himself in Sweden from 1622 and from 1628 in Stockholm where he became a guild master. During the period 1634-1640 he worked as a court painter for Queen Maria Eleonora. His was frequently employed by the Swedish nobility and his influence on Swedish art was considerable until a new generation of artists were invited by Queen Christina during the 1640s.
Lotz, Karoly
Hungarian Painter, 1833-1904 was a German-Hungarian painter. Karl Lotz was born in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe, Germany, the seventh and youngest surviving child of Wilhelm Christian Lotz and Antonia Höfflick. His father was a valet of Prince Gustav zu Hessen-Homburg at the time when the prince was representing Austria at the Congress of Vienna, which among other matters dealt with the House of Hessen-Homburg's rights of sovereignty over Hessen-Darmstadt. The sudden death of the young Baron von Sinclair, charge d'affaires, forced W. C. Lotz temporarily into the rôle. While in Hungary in 1815 he made the acquaintance of the 13-year-old Antonie Hoefflich, whom he married three years later. She gave birth to eight children, of whom Karl was the youngest. W. C. Lotz died in 1837 and Antonie moved the family to Pest (now that part of Budapest to the north of the River Danube). Karl attended the Piaristengymnasium, where, although Calvinist, he was awarded a scholarship for his exceptional academic performance. He began his artistic career as a pupil of the Hofkapellmeister Destouches, then in the academy of the Venetian master Jacopo Marastoni (1804-1860). Later he was a pupil of the historical painters Henrik Weber (1818-1866) in Budapest and Carl Rahl (1812-1865) in Vienna. Together with Rahl he worked on numerous commissions. Later he started on his own original works, first as a romantic landscape artist in scenes of the Alföld (the Hungarian lowland plain), and then as a creator of monumental murals and frescos in the style of the Venetian master Tiepolo. After various works in Budapest he became active in Vienna. He laid out plans for a grandiose palace, and completed murals commissioned by the Abbot of Tihany for his abbey church on the shore of Lake Balaton. He became known for his portraits and nudes, for which both his wife and his daughters (Katarina in particular) posed. Lotz found married bliss only at the age of 58, when he married the widow Jacoboy, the former wife of his brother Paul Johann Heinrich, who had died in 1828. From then on he signed his works Keroly Jacoboy-Lotz. In 1882 Lotz was appointed Professor at various art academies in Budapest, and in 1885 he became dean of a newly-established department for women painters.