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HOLBEIN, Hans the Younger: Portrait of Erasmus of Rotterdam

🖼 Portrait of Erasmus of Rotterdam, 1530
Oil on wood
33 × 25 cm
Parma, Italy

Soft light models the scholar's contemplative face against dark background, his hand poised over classical texts. Holbein's precise technique captures Erasmus at the height of Renaissance humanism, immortalizing the period's greatest intellectual through penetrating psychological insight.

The story of art
The story of art
E. H. Gombrich
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