Portrait of a Man

Hans Holbein the Elder painted this Portrait of a Man around 1519 for the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum. This late portrait shows the elder Holbein's continued mastery of the genre in his final years, before his more famous son would transform portrait painting for the following generation. The 1510s were a decade of extraordinary artistic achievement across Europe, shaped by the mature works of Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, and the Venetian masters.

The portrait demonstrates Holbein the Elder's mature technique with precise rendering of the sitter's features and the natural, unidealized approach to likeness that characterized the best Augsburg portrait painting.