Ritratto di Bonifacius Amerbach

Holbein was barely 22 when he painted this, newly admitted to the Basel painters' guild and allowed for the first time to sign a picture with his full name. The sitter, Bonifacius Amerbach, was a young law student about to leave for Avignon, and he wanted a likeness left behind in case he never came back. On the tablet beside him is a Latin verse written as though the painted face were speaking, insisting it is a true image of the living man. Behind him a fig tree stands against snowy Alpine peaks. The two became lifelong friends. Amerbach later inherited the library and estate of the humanist Erasmus, and his whole collection, this portrait included, was bought by the city of Basel in 1666 to found what is now the Kunstmuseum.