By 1515, Hans and Ambrosius had moved as journeymen painters to the city of Basel, a centre of learning and the printing trade.Bätschmann & Griener, 104. Basel had allied itself in 1501 with the Swiss Confederates, a group of cantons that had broken free of imperial rule. Many Basel citizens, however, remained proud of their imperial connections: the Madonna that Holbein painted for Jakob Meyer, for example, wears the imperial crown. There they were apprenticed to Hans Herbster, Basel's leading painter.North, 13–14; Bätschmann and Griener, 11; Claussen, 47. Hans Holbein the Elder and his brother Sigmund also moved away from Augsburg at about this time, but the reasons for the Holbein family's disappointment in the city is not known. The brothers found work in Basel as designers of woodcuts and metalcuts for printers.Sander, 14. In 1515, the preacher and theologian Oswald Myconius invited them to add pen drawings to the margin of a copy of The Praise of Folly by the humanist scholar Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam.Zwingenberger, 13; Wilson, 30, 37–42. For example: A Scholar Treads on a Basket of Eggs and Folly Steps Down from the Pulpit. The sketches provide early evidence of Holbein's wit and humanistic leaning. His other early works, including the double portrait of Basel's mayor Jakob Meyer zum Hasen and his wife Dorothea, follow his father's style.Sander, 15. See: Portrait of Jakob Meyer and Portrait of Dorothea Meyer. With Meyer zum Hasen, Holbein maintained a close working relationship until the latter was sacked in 1521.
By 1515, Hans and Ambrosius had moved as journeymen painters to the city of Basel, a centre of learning and the printing trade.Bätschmann & Griener, 104. Basel had allied itself in 1501 with the Swiss Confederates, a group of cantons that had broken free of imperial rule. Many Basel citizens, however, remained proud of their imperial connections: the Madonna that Holbein painted for Jakob Meyer, for example, wears the imperial crown. There they were apprenticed to Hans Herbster, Basel's leading painter.North, 13–14; Bätschmann and Griener, 11; Claussen, 47. Hans Holbein the Elder and his brother Sigmund also moved away from Augsburg at about this time, but the reasons for the Holbein family's disappointment in the city is not known. The brothers found work in Basel as designers of woodcuts and metalcuts for printers.Sander, 14. In 1515, the preacher and theologian Oswald Myconius invited them to add pen drawings to the margin of a copy of The Praise of Folly by the humanist scholar Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam.Zwingenberger, 13; Wilson 30, 37–42. For example: A Scholar Treads on a Basket of Eggs and Folly Steps Down from the Pulpit. The sketches provide early evidence of Holbein's wit and humanistic leaning. His other early works, including the double portrait of Basel's mayor Jakob Meyer zum Hasen, and his wife Dorothea, follow his father's style.Sander, 15. See: Portrait of Jakob Meyer and Portrait of Dorothea Meyer. With Meyer zum Hasen, Holbein maintained a close working relationship until the latter was sacked in 1521.