Hans Sebald Beham (1500-1550)

• Was a German painter and printmaker.
• Born in Nuremberg.
• He spent the later part of his career in Frankfurt.
• His name is often given as Hans Sebald Beham.
• 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.
• 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 often with an erotic element.
• In his later work he boldly re-interpreted many of Dürer's most famous prints in works such as his Melancholia of 1539.
• His brother Barthel Beham was engraver and painter.
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