Casual browsing turned up a pen and ink drawing of Sir Thomas More and family, by Hans Holbein, circa 1527, which was put up for auction in 2006 (story here).
I had a fiddle with it to tweak the colour cast. Legit? I don’t know. Maybe yellowed paper looks better.
Anyway the result is if anything, blue-cast. I could have messed with the selection settings to give a ‘cleaner’ result – but I didn’t. I prefer images to retain some personality. This one has some notes on detailing Thomas More’s requests for changes.
Thomas More Family Group by Hans Holbein, c 1527
So who was Hans Holbein? He lived in Switzerland and was part of the humanist circle of Erasmus. The religious wars afflicting Europe at the time, might well have persuaded him to come to England. His art was realistic and he did well in King Henry VIII’s court. In some circles he is considered part of England’s catch-up Renaissance (1500 up to the Civil War).
My treatment uses Difference and Luminosity layers to pick out line detail, without destroying the background texture of the paper.
The image I worked from is:
More-Family-Group-initial image
