Religion, Renaissance, and Reformation these three ideologies shaped the world of 16th-century portraitist Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/98 1543), a pivotal figure of the Northern Renaissance, whose skills took him to Switzerland, Belgium, Italy, and England, and garnered patrons and subjects as prestigious as Henry VIII, Thomas More, Anne of Cleves, and Reformation advocate Thomas Cromwell. While he started out with, and maintained, a repertoire of religious works, Holbein is regarded above all as one of the greatest portraitists in Western art history. His probing eye was matched with a draftsman mastery of line and an almost supernatural ability to control details, from the textures of luxurious clothing to the ornament of a room. He combined this meticulous mimesis with an inspired amalgam of regional painterly traits, combining Flemish-style realism, late medieval German composition, and Italian formal grandeur to astonishing effect. In this Basic Art introduction, we survey some of Holbein s key works from his illustrious and international career. Along the way, we discover a period as ripe with artistic innovation as with courtly drama and radical religious change, and an artist who made as much of a historical mark as the subjects he painted.