Overview

From a distinguished art historian, a dramatic reappraisal of Renaissance master Hans Holbein, whose art shaped politics and immortalized the Tudors Hans Holbein the Younger is chiefly celebrated for his beautiful and precisely realized portraiture, which includes representations of Henry VIII, his advisors Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell, his wives Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves, and an array of the Tudor lords and ladies encountered during the course of two sojourns in England. But beyond these familiar images, which have come to define our perception of the age, Holbein was a multifaceted genius: a humanist, satirist, and political propagandist, and a deft man whose work was rich in layers of symbolism and allusion. In The King's Painter, biographer Franny Moyle traces and analyzes the life and work of an extraordinary artist against the backdrop of an era of political turbulence and cultural transformation, to which his art offers a subtle and endlessly refracting mirror. It is a work of serious scholarship written for a wide audience.

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Reviews

[An] intricate and enlightening study of Holbein and his age. -- Wall Street Journal A biography entirely suited to its subject...It is big, bombastic, and richly brocaded...A triumph. -- The Times (London) Evokes the painter and his world as vividly as a Holbein masterpiece. Beautifully written. -- Tracy Borman, author of The Private Lives of the Tudors Full of insight. -- Dan Jones, author of The Wars of the Roses In Moyle's intriguing account, Holbein...is a canny pragmatist and a master of ambiguities. Alert to both possibilities and dangers, he negotiates...the traps of politics with impeccable skill. As an artist, his detailed observation and brilliant technique are combined with a shrewd sense of what his patrons want...[while] his own judgments can nonetheless be read in the subtleties of his drawings and paintings. -- New York Review One of the great strengths of Moyle's book is it allows you to view Holbein's enormous versatility...[and] the overwhelming sophistication of Holbein's gift for verisimilitude. -- The Spectator (London) Outstanding....[an] impressive and meticulous portrait of Holbein. -- New York Journal of Books

Author Information

Franny Moyle is a British television producer and author. Her first book, Desperate Romantics, was adapted into the BBC drama serial of the same title. Her second book, Constance: The Tragic and Scandalous Life of Mrs. Oscar Wilde, was published in 2011 to critical acclaim. In 2016 she released Turner: The Extraordinary Life and Momentous Times of J.M.W. Turner. Alison Larkin was born in Washington, DC, adopted at six weeks old by British parents, and raised in England and Africa. After graduating from Royal Holloway College, London University, and the Webber-Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, she became a playwright and classical actress on the British stage. Then, at twenty-eight, she found her birth mother, who was living in Bald Mountain, Tennessee. The experience turned her into a stand-up comic. She was soon headlining at the Comic Strip in New York and the Comedy Store in Los Angeles, while maintaining her theatrical career. She also spent three years under a studio development contract to star in her own sitcom with ABC, CBS, and Jim Henson Productions. Her unusually wide range of voices can be heard in cartoons and movies, from work by James Cameron and Robert Altman to Pocahontas and The Wonder Pets. The audiobook of The English American, narrated by Alison, won an AudioFile Earphones Award.

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