Portrait of a Woman

Hans Holbein the Elder's Portrait of a Woman from 1515 was painted when the elder Holbein was at the height of his career in Augsburg, the wealthy South German imperial city whose merchants and humanists provided steady patronage for painted portraits. Holbein the Elder was among the leading German painters of his generation, his work combining Flemish naturalistic precision with the South German decorative tradition, producing portraits of considerable psychological depth for his prosperous merchant clients. This late work, painted the year of Hans Holbein the Younger's first independent commissions, shows how thoroughly the elder Holbein had absorbed the Flemish tradition of specific physiognomic description while maintaining the formal clarity of German portraiture. The comparison between father and son's work in the same period illuminates both the family tradition and the generational development of German Renaissance portraiture.

The precise, linear drawing and detailed rendering of the sitter's headdress and costume reflect the Late Gothic portrait tradition of Southern Germany that the elder Holbein practiced throughout his career.