Holbein at the Tudor Court, review: forget the Tudor statesmen, this is about dazzling technique
There’s a rock-solid reason to visit this exhibition, and it isn’t the oil paintings or miniatures on display depicting powerful figures at the court of Henry VIII. Nor is it the lively terracotta bust of a laughing boy in a “cloth of gold” tunic, or even a lavish Flemish tapestry, with silver-wrapped thread, once owned by the Tudor king. Rather, it’s the drawings.
It’s been more than three decades since such a large selection of drawings by the German artist Hans Holbein the Younger, from an album in the Royal Collection known as the “Great Book”, have been exhibited together; encountering them up-close (even behind reflective glass) is to be reminded just how marvellous they are.
Having made his name in Basel (where he produced religious panels, anticipating the enigmatic Noli me Tangere at this show’s start, with its resurrected, kung-fu Christ seemingly adopting a martial-arts stance), Holbein arrived in England in 1526, and set to work on a group portrait of the family of the statesman Thomas More. Sensitively executed using black and coloured chalks, six preparatory studies for it hang in the first of three rooms at the Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace – and, in each case, we feel at once as if we have its sitter’s number.
More’s married daughter Cicely, for instance, a sharp-featured, vulpine presence, smart eyes swivelling to her left, is like a human radar system for detecting gossip, intrigue, treason. In comparison, his adopted daughter Anne, also auburn-haired and pale-skinned, appears uncertain, even anxious; behind her, Holbein sketches her chair with the swiftness and simplicity of Henri Matisse. Only More himself has a strangely surreal air, his eyes and lips coloured, as if in drag.
In the next room, there are more drawings, this time on pink-primed paper, of puffed-up dukes and barons, stubbly, surprisingly dishevelled courtiers and sleek, self-confident merchants, wrinkled, careworn archbishops, glamorous poets, and an unidentified, bare-chested young man wearing a medallion. Annotated work-tools for Holbein’s immaculate finished paintings (several of which also appear in the show), his likenesses display, often within the same composition, dramatically different degrees of finish. There are fewer drawings in the final room, devoted to the artist’s career as “King’s Painter”, which feels more official and less engaging; even a study, here, of Edward, Prince of Wales appears (for Holbein) slightly off, his head as inflated as a football.
Thanks to Hilary Mantel, the Tudors remain as fascinating, for us, as ever – yet, despite the presence of a seemingly mistrustful aristocrat casting a sideways glance, this exhibition encourages us to set aside the backstabbing intrigue and revel in Holbein’s 500-year-old technique. A minuscule touch of white wash enlivens an iris; smudged, dampened chalk summons the gentle contours of a cheek. A surprising, almost lubricious, lipstick-like flash of salmon-pink embellishes the mouth of a blue-eyed lady-in-waiting. Holbein’s deft, attenuated outlines, sometimes emphasised with ink, always commanding, demonstrate a taut, minimalist grace.
Moreover, throughout, Holbein juxtaposes emptier passages with dense, delightfully dancing marks, summarily denoting, say, a sumptuous costume, details of which he also recorded in longhand (eg, “rosa felbet”, or pink velvet). The clothes may be archaic – several women are depicted wearing the sort of architectural headdresses that frame the faces of playing-card queens – but there’s nothing remote about the visages of those who sport them. “There’s no art / To find the mind’s construction in the face,” says King Duncan in Macbeth – but his court didn’t boast an artist of Holbein’s calibre.
From Nov 10 until April 14; rct.uk