MEYER MADONNA

Original 11 3/4 inch x 8 3/8 inch Engraving titled THE MEYER MADONNA.

The Darmstadt Madonna, or Meyer Madonna, is an oil painting by Hans Holbein the Younger. Completed in 1526 in Basel, the work shows the Bürgermeister of Basel Jakob Meyer zum Hasen, his first wife, his current wife, and his daughter grouped around the Madonna and infant Jesus.

From the painting by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497 – 1543). Holbein was born in Augsburg in southern Germany in the winter of 1497-8. He was taught by his father, Hans Holbein the Elder. He became a member of the Basel artists’ guild in 1519. He travelled a great deal, and is recorded in Lucerne, northern Italy and France. In these years he produced woodcuts and fresco designs as well as panel paintings. With the spread of the Reformation in Northern Europe the demand for religious images declined and artists sought alternative work. Holbein first travelled to England in 1526 with a recommendation to Thomas More from the scholar Erasmus. In 1532 he settled in England, dying of the plague in London in 1543.

From The Graphic Supplement, 1872

The Graphic was a British weekly illustrated newspaper, first published on 4 December 1869 by William Luson Thomas’s company Illustrated Newspapers Limited. It continued to be published weekly under this title until 23 April 1932 and then changed title to The National Graphic between 28 April and 14 July 1932; it then ceased publication, after 3,266 issues.

Page size 15 1/2 inch x 11 1/2 inch

The engraving is in very good condition with light staining in the right border. Reverse side blank.