In the court of Hans Holbein, king's painter

A sense of history - of a time, place, dynasty, artist or school of art - is one of the gains of a visit to a museum or gallery. And history, a brilliant visual slice of it from the court of King Henry VIII, is exactly what you get from the latest exhibition at Tate Britain, Holbein in England.

At this magnificent exhibition of work by Hans Holbein the Younger we have the chance to put faces to names of those who danced attendance at King Henry's court. And there's a wealth of evidence of affluence and influence, ambition, faith, love, life and death in the selection of 38 portrait and subject paintings, decorative designs and prints on show.

Every item demonstrates the extraordinary skill and accomplishment of Holbein, the first great painter to work in England and the man who effectively brought the Renaissance in painting from the continent to Britain.

Born in Augsburg, Bavaria, in 1497/8, Holbein trained in the workshop of his father (Hans Holbein the Elder), then pursued a successful career as a painter and designer in Basel before coming to England determined to become a court painter. His first visit (1526-1528) was courtesy of a letter of recommendation from the humanist scholar Erasmus to his good friend Sir Thomas More who became Holbein's patron. His second (1532-1543) lasted until his death, almost certainly from the Plague.

Holbein started working for Henry as the King's Painter' soon after his return to England but still found time to produce portraits - all sizes, including roundels and miniatures - of members of the aristocracy, together with Henry's physicians and apothecary, and the wealthier German merchants of London.

No matter how strong our grasp of history, one thing is for sure: thanks to Holbein, the face and square powerful figure of King Henry VIII is instantly recognisable. The exhibition's curator Dr Susan Foister considers the pictures we see definitive. From the cartoon fragment of Henry and his father to the full copy of it that hung as a mural at Whitehall, to the only surviving oil portrait of Henry painted in 1536, she says, "Given Holbein's ability to capture a likeness we can be confident that this is what he looked like."

Bull neck, broad shoulders, small shrewd eyes under thin arched brows, the bearded 45-year-old Henry in the 1536 oil is an imposing figure. Dressed in magnificent cloth of silver and gold thick with jewels, his shirt collar embroidered in delicate gold (he used powdered gold in the paint and precious lapis lazuli in the background), it makes a sumptuous work of art. The ermine on his jewelled cap looks so soft and fine you lean close to check it really is just paint you are seeing.

This is the hallmark of Holbein: the art of illusion. Texture, light, colour and a profound stillness convey reality as well as deception: the person, their form and personality, seems present in front of you.

Sharing the same wall space, her three-quarter-length pose angled towards Henry, is his third and favourite wife Jane Seymour, her pale tight-lipped portrait painted in 1537. Jane died shortly after giving birth to Henry's long-awaited male heir, Edward, whose picture sits at Henry's other hand. Given to Henry as a New Year's present in 1539, Holbein flatters the king: instead of the ailing son Edward actually was, here is a robust infant in rich red and gold robes who holds a rattle like a sceptre and waves regally. An inscription behoves Edward to emulate his father.

These three outstanding royal portraits are reunited for the first time since they were painted, allowing us to stand and look at them just as Henry himself would have done in his palace almost 500 years ago.

Equally exciting is having the pen-and-ink drawing of the More family back in England.

"Historically, it is a very important drawing - the first in northern Europe to show a family at ease at home, not at prayer," Dr Foister observes. The painting no longer survives but the drawing gives a sense of its composition.

It is unique in recording the dialogue between Sir Thomas More and Holbein while work was in progress. Holbein's notes are handwritten in the margin: More's wife should sit and the musical instruments should lie down. Annotations scribbled all over this wonderfully intimate picture record the names and ages of the family so that when it was given to Erasmus as a sort of family photo he could be reminded of them all. He is said to have adored it. No wonder, when you look closely at this exquisite drawing.

These were the turbulent years of the English Reformation. This theme is examined in the religious works displayed in the room entitled Catholic England, Protestant England. It includes designs for cruciform pendants and title pages of bibles illustrated by Holbein. When Holbein first arrived England was a staunchly Catholic country; by his second visit in 1532 everything was changing following Henry's marriage to Anne Boleyn.

Henry VIII had six wives, as everyone knows, and they were "divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived" as we also all know. Three of them, possibly four if you include the "Portrait of a Lady" thought to be Anne, are on show here: two of Jane Seymour, a 1539 miniature of Anne of Cleves and another possibly of Queen Catherine Howard.

There is one more, or a might-have-been, and to my mind quite the loveliest (and perhaps the wisest) of them all. After Jane died Holbein was sent to foreign courts to paint likenesses of prospective brides.

In the final room is his charming full-length portrait of the 16-year-old Christina of Denmark painted in 1538, a picture Henry liked so much he had musicians playing night and day once he saw it. She, however, had other ideas, saying, "If I had two heads I would happily place one at the disposal of the King of England." Christina made the trip from the National Gallery to this exhibition at the Tate - unlike that archetypal Renaissance painting, The Ambassadors. Too fragile to travel, it remains a short bus hop away. Add it to your day and you will get an even more complete picture of Holbein in Britain.

Holbein in England runs until January 7, 2007. For details visit www.tate.org.uk