Hans Holbein the Younger

The two Holbeins, father and son

The Holbeins are a dynasty of craftsmen and painters originating in Augsburg, in Swabia. The family is attested from the Middle Ages as a workshop of tanners and goldsmiths, before producing, between the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, two of the greatest portraitists of the German Renaissance.

Hans Holbein «the Elder» (1473–1524), son of Michel Holbein, a tanner, and of Anna Mair, ran a renowned workshop in Augsburg, working in a late Gothic style influenced by the currents of the Italian Renaissance. Together with his brother Sigismund Holbein, himself a fine painter, he produced religious works in late Gothic style: he was the pioneer and chief agent of the transformation of German art from Gothic towards the Renaissance. He also illustrated several books, the most famous being the In Praise of Folly by Erasmus. In 1493 he married Barbara Burgkmair (1470–1498), of the family of the painter Hans Burgkmair. He died in 1524 at Issenheim, in Alsace.

Their son Hans Holbein «the Younger» (1497–1543) continued and surpassed his father’s work. The second son of Hans the Elder, he was the younger brother of Ambrosius Holbein (b. 1493/94c. – † 1519c.), with whom he trained in their father’s workshop.

In 1515 the Holbein family settled in Basel, a high place of humanism where Hans the Younger became friends with Erasmus. From 1516 to 1526, working for the wealthy merchant bourgeoisie, he produced portraits, religious compositions, mural decorations, stained-glass cartoons and engravings: the Basel art museum thus holds the most important collection in the world of works by the Holbein family. Influenced by Matthias Grünewald, his style opened to the new conceptions of the Italian Renaissance.

In 1526, fleeing the Reformation, he left for London, recommended by Erasmus to Thomas More. This period marked the height of his career: he designed a triumphal arch for Anne Boleyn’s entry into London and painted The Ambassadors in 1533. In 1536, appointed painter and groom of the chamber to Henry VIII, he soon became the official portraitist of the English court. A portraitist seeking the telling expressions of faces behind appearances, he united the new humanist tendencies with the Gothic traditions. In 1543, at the height of his fame, he died of the plague in London on 29 November.

Hans Holbein the Younger married in 1520 Elisabeth Bintzenstock (1501–1549), daughter of a Basel tanner. From their descent come the imperial goldsmiths Holbein of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The Alsatian transmission

From the seventeenth century onward, the Holbein line moved towards Eglingen and Alsace. Franciscus Holbein (1645–1712), a burgher of Eglingen, married in 1671 Marie Anne Jemelen. Through the following generations, the Holbein blood passed by the female line into the Behe, Mohn and Lidy families of the Sundgau and Mulhouse.

Marthe Lidy (1907–1996), a direct descendant of the Holbeins in the twenty-second generation, married in 1934 Louis Schneider (1891–1964) at Mulhouse. Their daughter Jeanine Schneider (b. 1945) married in 1971 Guido Guerri dall’Oro Gallone (1941–2019), 11th Prince of Tricase.

It is thus that the descent of the two Augsburg painters joins, at the end of the twentieth century, the House of Guerri dall’Oro Gallone — and continues today in Simon (b. 1985) and in his son Léon (b. 2018).

Family tree — from Conrad Holbein to Léon

The branching from Marthe Lidy

From Marthe Lidy (1907–1996) ∞ Louis Schneider (1891–1964, Mulhouse), the descent branches into two lines:

Nicole Schneider (1936–1987) ∞ 1962 Jean Paul Koegler (1939–2003)

• Pascale Koegler (b. 1963)
• Véronique Koegler (b. 1964)
• Thierry Koegler (b. 1967)
• Nicolas Koegler (b. 1971)

Jeanine Schneider (b. 1945) ∞ 1971 Guido Guerri dall’Oro Gallone (1941–2019), 11th Prince of Tricase

• Eléonore Guerri dall’Oro Gallone (b. 1973)
  • Louis (b. 2004)
  • Eugénie (b. 2007)
  • Bérénice (b. 2013)
• Emmanuelle Guerri dall’Oro Gallone (b. 1974)
• Simon Guerri dall’Oro Gallone (b. 1985), 12th Prince of Tricase ∞ 2017 Coline Morel (b. 1986)
  • Léon Guerri dall’Oro Gallone (b. 2018), future 13th Prince of Tricase
  • Auguste Guerri dall’Oro Gallone (b. 2021)

Reference

Filiation reconstructed from the archive of the Schneider family (Mulhouse) and integrated into the genealogical research of Guido Guerri dall’Oro Gallone (1941–2019), 11th Prince of Tricase.