Sebald Beham (1500–1550) was a German painter and printmaker, mainly known for his very small engravings. Born in Nuremberg, he spent the later part of his career in Frankfurt. He was one of the most important of the "Little Masters", the group of German artists making prints in the generation after Dürer.
His name is often given as Hans Sebald Beham although there is no documentary evidence that he ever used that additional forename.[1][2]
He produced approximately 252 engravings, 18 etchings and 1500 woodcuts, including woodcut book illustrations. He worked extensively on tiny, highly detailed, engravings, many as small as postage stamps, placing him in the German printmaking school known as the "Little Masters" from the size of their prints. Those works were printed and published by him, and his much larger woodcuts were mostly commissioned work. The engravings found a ready market among German bourgeois collectors. He also made prints for use as playing cards and wallpaper.
His engravings cover a range of subjects, but he is especially known for scenes of peasant life and scenes from classical myth or history, both of which often had an erotic element. His early work was done under the shadow of Dürer, who was still working in Nuremberg, and one early woodcut "Head of Christ", to which the "AD" monogram was added in the second state (though probably not by Beham), was long misattributed to Dürer by Adam Bartsch and others. He also borrowed from his brother Barthel's rather more original works. In his later work he boldly re-interpreted many of Dürer's most famous prints in works such as his Melancholia of 1539, exploiting the difference in scale between his work and the original. His dark backgrounds may have been inspired by Italian Niello prints.[3]
^Cite error: The named reference rowlands was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Stewart, Alison G. "Sebald Beham: Entrepreneur, Printmaker, Painter". Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art. Archived from the original on 16 February 2015. Retrieved 23 September 2014.
^Levin, William (1975). Images of Love and Death In Late Medieval and Renaissance Art. The University of Michigan Museum of Art. p. 71.
SebaldBeham (1500–1550) was a German painter and printmaker, mainly known for his very small engravings. Born in Nuremberg, he spent the later part of...
academic and writer William J. Sebald (1901–1980), American diplomat SebaldBeham (1500–1550), German printmaker Seabold Sebold (disambiguation) Seibold...
Hans Beham may refer to: Hans SebaldBeham (1500–1550), engraver, designer of woodcuts, painter and miniaturist born in Nuremberg Hans Beham, also of...
some no larger than a postage stamp. The leading members were Hans SebaldBeham, his brother Barthel, and George Pencz, all from Nuremberg, and Heinrich...
decorations, and statues. In Germany, the brothers Barthel Beham (1502–40) and SebaldBeham (1500–50) produced between them six different renderings of...
Barthel Beham (or Bartel) (1502–1540) was a German engraver, miniaturist, and painter. The younger brother of Hans SebaldBeham, he was born into a family...
Holophernes, by Hans Baldung Grien, c. 1525, Germanisches Nationalmuseum. SebaldBeham engraving of 1547 Giorgione, Judith (c. 1505) Michelangelo, Judith carrying...
and the Danube school; as for individual artistic links, Barthel Beham, SebaldBeham, Georg Pencz, Albrecht Altdorfer and Wolfgang Huber can be mentioned...
16th-century Europe, including the representations of the printmaker Hans SebaldBeham. The French philosopher Michel de Montaigne wrote of a dance he saw in...
of the story first appeared in manuscripts and prints such as Hans SebaldBeham's The Judgement of Cambyses (1542) which was part of the frontispiece...
from Roman Spain (AD 26) Silver sculpture (1530s) Engraving (1) by Hans SebaldBeham Gustave Moreau (1861) John Singer Sargent (1921) A modern version by...
Raimondi. In 1525, he was imprisoned with the brothers Barthel Beham and Hans SebaldBeham, the so-called "godless painters", for spreading the radical...
gaiety, and in the 1528 painting, occult elements appear. Prints by Hans SebaldBeham (1539) and Jost Amman (1589) are clearly related. In the Baroque period...
women that was largely imagined. The artists Titian, Melchior Lorich and SebaldBeham were all influential in creating a visual representation of Hürrem. Images...
depicted the legend are Eugène Delacroix, Rogier van der Weyden, Hans SebaldBeham, Noël Coypel and Noël Hallé. A French painter Raoul Dufy was inspired...
historians to refer to SebaldBeham, his brother Barthel, and George Pencz, as exemplified in the title of a 2011 catalog of the Beham brothers' works, The...
religious themes. The most talented were the brothers Bartel Beham and the longer-lived SebaldBeham. Like Georg Pencz, they came from Nuremberg and were expelled...
with Capricorn and Aquarius at his feet and the New Year in his arms, from The Seven Planets with the Signs of the Zodiac (1539) by Hans SebaldBeham...
Lichas bringing the garment of Nessus to Hercules, engraving of Hans SebaldBeham for the "Labors of Hercules" (1542–1548) Hercules and Lichas (1795),...
precedents for this in prints by Giulio Campagnola, Agostino Veneziano, Hans SebaldBeham and Theodor de Bry, as well as classical sculptures known to Velázquez...