Sigmund Holbein
1470–1540 · German · Northern Renaissance, Late Gothic
The story
The Holbein name belongs mostly to two men: Hans Holbein the Elder and his son Hans the Younger, who painted the court of Henry VIII of England. Sigmund Holbein is the third, quieter Holbein, the Elder's brother, who spent years working beside him in the busy painting workshop at Augsburg in southern Germany.
Not much of his own hand can be picked out with certainty, which is part of why he stayed in the family's shadow. He worked in Augsburg until about 1517, then moved on, and he died in 1540 in Bern, in Switzerland, where his will left what he had to his famous nephew, Hans the Younger.
