MAKE A MEME View Large Image Henry VIII and the Barber Surgeons, by Hans Holbein the Younger, Richard Greenbury, and others.jpg 60px left Sir William Butts 60px left John Chambers This large-scale work was commissioned to commemorate the grant of a royal charter to the ...
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Keywords: Henry VIII and the Barber Surgeons, by Hans Holbein the Younger, Richard Greenbury, and others.jpg 60px left Sir William Butts 60px left John Chambers This large-scale work was commissioned to commemorate the grant of a royal charter to the Company of Barbers and the Guild of Surgeons on their merger in 1540 Presumably at the request of his clients Holbein based the design on that of the miniatures painted on Tudor charters of privileges Henry did not sit for this last of Holbein's portraits of him Working from an existing sketch Holbein painted him not so much as a living person but as an icon <ref>Stephanie Buck Hans Holbein Cologne Könemann 1999 ISBN 3829025831 128 </ref> The members of the company however were painted as individuals The figures of Sir William Butts and the doctor John Chambers are closely related to portraits of them by Holbein left <br> <br/>According to the diarist Samuel Pepys the painting was badly damaged in the Great Fire of London of 1666 <ref name W>Derek Wilson Hans Holbein Portrait of an Unknown Man London Pimlico 2006 ISBN 1844139182 273 </ref> It is not clear how much of the original panel was completed by Holbein himself who died in the year the painting was begun and how much by others; neither is it known whether those who first added to the work did so under Holbein's supervision Scholars such as Roy Strong and John Rowlands suspect that the main additions were made after Holbein's death probably in the last years of Henry VIII's reign since they are not improvements <ref>Rowlands John Holbein The Paintings of Hans Holbein the Younger Boston David R Godine 1985 ISBN 0879235780 148 “49 </ref> Holbein's cartoon for the composition later much painted over by other hands reveals his original conception but the actual painting departs markedly from it in places for example in the second row of figures on the right and in the background The inscription is not Holbein's though it can be dated to before Henry's death in 1547 The men standing in the second row on the right were added in the mid-16th century by an anonymous painter The painter and restorer Richard Greenbury reworked the painting in the 17th century so heavily that he entirely covered the original layers of varnish with impasto <ref>Buck 127 “29 </ref> In the view of Holbein's biographer Derek Wilson the result is a disaster A lifeless oversized king dangles the charter from a limp hand while a row the second rank was added later of comparatively diminutive recipients kneel in relevant homage The treatment is archaic and atypical <ref name W>Derek Wilson Hans Holbein Portrait of an Unknown Man London Pimlico 2006 ISBN 1844139182 273 </ref><br> <br/>References <references/> Stephanie Buck Hans Holbein Cologne Könemann 1999 ISBN 3829025831 Creator Hans Holbein d J with additions and reworkings by other hands Begun c 1543; additions and reworkings mid-16th century and 17th century 80px80px PD-old-100 Henry VIII and the Barber Surgeons
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