Painting a Renaissance Masterpiece From Scratch for The Grand Budapest Hotel

Renaissance painter Johannes van Hoytl the Younger (1613-1669) worked in solitude. Known for his use of light and shade, as well as his attraction to the lustrous and velvety, the painter was particularly un-prolific and a financial failure. Yet, van Hoytl nevertheless produced up to a dozen of the finest portraits the world has ever seen.

He also never existed.

In 2012, director Wes Anderson approached 62-year-old British portrait artist Michael Taylor with a unique challenge: create a fictional Renaissance painting—not too Italian and with a bit of a northern spin—for his upcoming film,