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| Hans Baldung Heraldic Unicorn 1544 drawing British Museum |
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| Anonyumous print-maker after Hans Baldung Heraldic Unicorns ca. 1575-1600 woodcut British Museum |
"In 1503 he [Hans Baldung] traveled to Nuremberg. There he met Dürer and became his most reliable assistant and one of his closest friends; when Dürer left for Venice, he entrusted his workshop to Baldung ... After returning to Strasbourg, Baldung did devotional illustration for treatises on the Virgin Mary and painted nude maidens gazing at themselves in mirrors, stalked by Death, fairytale knights galloping through the woods, and Christs in the sepulcher. In 1510 he began to dedicate himself to themes linked to the image of the female body, ranging from monstrous and seductive figures of witches to allegorical figures."
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| Hans Baldung The Fall of Man 1511 woodcut British Museum |
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| René Boyvin after Rosso Fiorentino Jupiter and Europa ca. 1545-55 engraving British Museum |
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| René Boyvin after Rosso Fiorentino Saturn and Philyra ca. 1545-55 engraving British Museum |
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| René Boyvin after Rosso Fiorentino Salt cellar with Neptune 1550s engraving British Museum |
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| Sebald Beham Joseph and Potiphar's Wife 1544 engraving British Museum |
"The liberation of 16th-century science from Aristotelian tradition offered a new, more direct relationship with nature. One emblematic example, closely tied to art, was the study of anatomy. ... Direct observation, made possible by dissection, showed that one could not constrain the 'accidents' of biology within a schematic relationship of predefined proportions. An alternative to the auctoritas of classical authors thus appeared. Dürer offers the most obvious case of an artist-cum-intellectual torn between the two tendencies. He studied not only 'virile,' athletic male nudes – the standard 'type' from Greek art forward – but also the bodies of women and children, and body types ranging from obese to emaciated."
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| Hendrik Goltzius Standard-Bearer 1587 engraving British Museum |
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| Hendrik Goltzius Soldier from behind ca. 1582 engraving British Museum |
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| Hendrik Goltzius Captain of Infantry 1587 engraving Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| Hans Holbein Wild Man ca. 1528 drawing British Museum |
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| Hans Holbein Two Putti ca. 1543 drawing British Museum |
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| Hans Holbein Woman with children ca. 1532-33 drawing British Museum |
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| Jan Rutlinger Queen Elizabeth I ca. 1590-1600 engraving British Museum |
"The English 16th century, which attained its cultural apogee during the age of Shakespeare, can be viewed as a succession of lacerating divisions and internecine wars. To list them briefly: the Anglican schism brought about by the king, using as pretext the pope's refusal to authorize his divorce; the early phase of persecution that culminated in the execution of Sir Thomas More; the suppression of the monasteries between 1535 and 1540; the emblematic loss at Portsmouth of the Mary Rose, flagship of the war fleet (1545); the contest for the throne between the two half-sisters Mary and Elizabeth; the continuous wars along the Scottish borders; the beheading of the deposed Scottish queen, Mary Stuart ... One could go on."
– Quotations from European Art of the Sixteenth Century by Stefano Zuffi, translated by Antony Shugaar (Getty Museum, 2005)