Hans Holbein the Younger
Aside from Albrecht Dürer, Hans Holbein the Younger is the most important representative of Northern Renaissance painting. His outstanding talents as a portrait painter convincingly established his fame, and beginning no later than 1536, as the court painter of Henry VIII in England, he had achieved an enormous reputation that went far beyond the borders of the German-speaking word. With his painting and drawn portraits of both middle-class and noble contemporaries, he influenced what has become our view of the face of the Northern Renaissance.
At first sight this painting looks like a photo, doesn't it?
Charles de Solier, Comte de Morette, was a French soldier and diplomat as well as a long-serving gentilhomme de la chambre to Francis I. He acted as ambassador to England on a number of occasions from October 1526 to June 1535. Morette was in London in 1534 when Henry VIII was attempting to win French support for his repudiation of Catherine of Aragon, in an alliance against Charles V. Around this time, his portrait was painted by Hans Holbein the Younger.