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The King’s Painter: The Life of Hans Holbein Audiobook
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Publisher Description
From a distinguished art historian, a dramatic reappraisal of Renaissance master Hans Holbein, whose art shaped politics and immortalized the Tudors
Hans Holbein the Younger is chiefly celebrated for his beautiful and precisely realized portraiture, which includes representations of Henry VIII, his advisors Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell, his wives Jane Seymour and Anne of Cleves, and an array of the Tudor lords and ladies encountered during the course of two sojourns in England. But beyond these familiar images, which have come to define our perception of the age, Holbein was a multifaceted genius: a humanist, satirist, and political propagandist, and a deft man whose work was rich in layers of symbolism and allusion.
In The King’s Painter, biographer Franny Moyle traces and analyzes the life and work of an extraordinary artist against the backdrop of an era of political turbulence and cultural transformation, to which his art offers a subtle and endlessly refracting mirror. It is a work of serious scholarship written for a wide audience.
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“In Moyle’s intriguing account, Holbein…is a canny pragmatist and a master of ambiguities. Alert to both possibilities and dangers, he negotiates…the traps of politics with impeccable skill. As an artist, his detailed observation and brilliant technique are combined with a shrewd sense of what his patrons want…[while] his own judgments can nonetheless be read in the subtleties of his drawings and paintings.”
— New York Review
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“A biography entirely suited to its subject…It is big, bombastic, and richly brocaded…A triumph.”
— The Times (London) -
“[An] intricate and enlightening study of Holbein and his age.”
— Wall Street Journal -
“Outstanding….[an] impressive and meticulous portrait of Holbein.”
— New York Journal of Books -
“One of the great strengths of Moyle’s book is it allows you to view Holbein’s enormous versatility…[and] the overwhelming sophistication of Holbein’s gift for verisimilitude.”
— The Spectator (London) -
“Evokes the painter and his world as vividly as a Holbein masterpiece. Beautifully written.”
— Tracy Borman, author of The Private Lives of the Tudors -
“Full of insight.”
— Dan Jones, author of The Wars of the Roses
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About Franny Moyle
Franny Moyle studied art history at St John’s College, Cambridge. She enjoyed a career in arts programming at the BBC that culminated in her becoming the corporation’s first commissioner for arts and culture. She is now a freelance executive producer and writer and the author of Constance: The Tragic and Scandalous Life of Mrs. Oscar Wilde and Desperate Romantics: The Private Lives of the Pre-Raphaelites.
About Alison Larkin
Alison Larkin is a playwright, stage actress, stand-up comic, voice artist, and Earphones Award–winning narrator whose wide range of voices can be heard in cartoons and movies, including Pocahontas and The Wonder Pets.