Selbstbildnis

Hans Holbein made his name in England as court painter to Henry VIII, turning out those sharp, unsparing likenesses of the king and his circle. This small drawing in coloured chalks, done around 1542, is the only self-portrait we can be sure is his, and he made it near the very end. He was working in London when he died about 1543, most likely in one of the plague outbreaks that regularly swept the city, and he left a will in a hurry. Holbein drew himself the way he drew everyone else, steadily and without flattery. The gilded background you see now was not his idea. A later hand added the gold and reworked the edges long after his death.