In 1523 Holbein developed a portrait of Erasmus that reflected the sitter’s scholarly reputation. Holbein portrayed Erasmus in three-quarter pose and dressed in a black robe and hat, emphasizing his intellectual character through the strong jawline and deep-set eyes. This circa 1532 painting of the then sixty-two-year-old humanist was based upon that earlier image but sensitively adjusted to convey Erasmus’s advanced age. His cheeks are more sunken, his forehead is wrinkled, and snow-white hair now peeks from underneath his cap. Such portrait roundels often served as intimate gifts between family members or close friends. This example was in the possession of Hieronymus Froben, son of the printer Johann Froben and Erasmus’s godson.

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Erasmus received this ring, set with an ancient carved gem, as a gift from his student Alexander Stewart, the archbishop of St. Andrews, Scotland. Erasmus believed the figure on the gem to be Terminus, the popular Roman god of boundaries known for his firm opposition to Jupiter, who tried to expel Terminus from the Capitoline Hill in Rome. Intrigued by this model of fortitude (and obstinance), Erasmus took Terminus as his personal emblem. The figure on the gem, however, has now been identified as Dionysus, god of wine.

Erasmus had this seal made to press his emblem into the warm wax that fastened his correspondences and other documents. Here Terminus is represented simply as a herm, a pedestal with a head. An inscription on the base identifies the Roman god while his head is framed by an abbreviated form of Erasmus’s personal motto, Cedo nulli (I yield to no one).

Albrecht Dürer depicted the humanist scholar standing in his book-filled study and writing a letter. Although the inscription asserts that the likeness was “done from life,” the two men did not meet for an in-person sitting. Instead, Dürer based the portrayal on a drawing he had made during his meeting with Erasmus years earlier and on Quentin Metsys’s medal, while the composition evokes Holbein’s earlier portraits of the scholar writing at his desk. Ultimately, Erasmus did not care for Dürer’s representation and complained about it to friends.

Portrait medals were a form of portable sculpture popular in the Renaissance. Erasmus commissioned the design for this large and impressive medal from the Antwerp painter Quentin Metsys, who combined Erasmus’s likeness with that of his emblem, the Roman god Terminus. Attired in a cap and collared robe, Erasmus appears in profile, as if on an ancient coin. The surrounding inscription relates to the long-standing humanist debate about the respective merits of images and texts. It asserts that although the portrait is “from life,” and therefore reliable, Erasmus’s writings provide a truer representation of the author.

Seen in profile, facing into the winds of adversity, Terminus aligns with Erasmus’s portrait on the obverse. In Christian thought, Terminus was associated with the boundary between life and death. Turning the medal over, from the portrait of Erasmus to the image of Terminus, encouraged consideration of the inevitable passage from life to death, the true terminus.

In this painting, Holbein combined Erasmus’s portrait with his emblem, providing Terminus with Erasmus’s facial features. Seen through a stone opening, Erasmus/Terminus gazes across a featureless landscape. The golden disk behind his head represents divine radiance, underscoring the Christian meaning of the emblem for Erasmus: steadfast character and unwavering faith. This rare painting of a personal emblem by Holbein was probably intended to delight an admirer rather than to gratify Erasmus himself.

To satisfy the great demand for likenesses of Erasmus among the scholar’s many patrons and admirers, Holbein and members of his Basel workshop produced numerous versions of the same image. Like the other painted representation of Erasmus on view in the exhibition, this portrait shows the scholar in three-quarter profile against a neutral background. Holbein achieved a stately monumentality by filling the narrow panel with Erasmus’s form and by depicting his austere but luxurious clothing: the black hat and voluminous robe with fur collar and cuffs.

Holbein designed this commemorative portrait of Erasmus following the latter’s death in 1536. Seen in full length and dressed in long robes, the scholar rests his hand on a sculpted herm of Terminus, which seems to cast a wily glance at the viewer. The lavishly decorated triumphal arch honors Erasmus, while the motifs of baskets and abundant garlands of fruit allude to his prolific scholarship. The text, added in movable metal type (not part of the woodcut itself ), commends the accuracy of the portrait: “If you have not seen Erasmus in life, then this image, executed from life, will show you how he looked.”

Despite its small scale, Holbein’s posthumous portrait of Johann Froben (1460–1527), originally enclosed in a carved frame with a lid, conveys the determined character of the Basel printer. It is one of the first known portraits of a European book printer, suggesting the importance of Froben to the printing industry as well as to Holbein’s career. Erasmus entrusted the publication of most of his texts to Froben, whose enterprise influenced book production throughout Europe. Froben hired Holbein to design woodcut illustrations for his publications beginning in 1516.

Starting in 1516, Holbein designed decorative borders and illustrations for the Basel printer Johann Froben. This imagery, often derived from classical sources, was intended to appeal to a cultured clientele but did not directly relate to the text itself. Here, the shield in the left border contains the initials HH, which stand for either Hans Holbein or Hans Herman, the blockcutter who translated Holbein’s drawing into a relief woodblock for printing. Facing the title page is Froben’s printer’s mark, the trademark of his press. The caduceus (staff ) of the god Mercury represents industry and commerce, while the dove and serpents are derived from Matthew 10:16, which is printed in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew: “Be you therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves.”

The books Johann Froben printed were distributed across Europe, which meant that Holbein’s illustrations (if not his name) were disseminated as well. In 1521 the London printer Richard Pynson had an exact copy of the Mucius Scaevola border produced for his own use. Although the initials HH were retained, Pynson was likely more interested in emulating the quality of Froben’s production than Holbein’s artistic creation. In fact, many title-page borders used by the Basel printers—those designed by Holbein and others—were copied across Europe in efforts to capitalize on the notoriety of Basel printing.

Sir Thomas More (1478–1535) sat for this portrait at the height of his political career, shortly before he was promoted to lord chancellor, the highest-ranking office in Tudor England. Like his friend Erasmus, More was a prolific scholar, but Holbein presents him as an authoritative statesman, prominently adorned with a gold livery chain— a symbol of his service to the king. The S-shaped links might stand in for the motto “Souvent me souvient” (Think of me often), while a Tudor rose at the center is the traditional heraldic emblem of England. The portrait displays Holbein’s ability to render colors and textures—from More’s graying stubble to the opulent fur trim of his coat and the lush, voluminous red-velvet sleeves of his doublet.

During a stay in Antwerp in 1515, Sir Thomas More began drafting a literary work that described a self-contained society on a fictional island. He coined the term “utopia” based on the ancient Greek term ou-topos, meaning “no place.” Both playful and serious, rooted in satire but also exploring complex philosophical ideas, the text was edited by his friend Erasmus and first published in Antwerp in 1516. The revised Basel edition, on view here, was published by Johann Froben under the continued guidance of Erasmus. It included a new map showing a bird’s-eye view of the island designed by Hans Holbein’s older brother, Ambrosius, and reused a title page border that Hans designed in 1516.

Mary Wotton, Lady Guildford (1499–after 1527), calmly gazes at the viewer from within a grand setting embellished by a marble column decorated in an Italianate style. She and her husband, Sir Henry Guildford, were among Holbein’s most important patrons during the artist’s first stay in England. While the sophisticated backdrop, jewelry, and fashionable dress, painted using lavish quantities of gold, denote Lady Guildford’s social status, the portrait also aims to communicate her piety and virtue. She clutches a religious book and a rosary, as if caught in a moment of reading or praying. The sprig of rosemary attached to her bodice is a traditional symbol of remembrance.

Written in an animated and accessible style, this popular work, long attributed to St. Bonaventure, encourages readers to reflect on mortality—hence the “mirror” in the English title—and contemplate the episodes of suffering that led up to Christ’s death. The woodcut illustration shows St. Bonaventure giving the book to a woman, suggesting that the text was specifically intended for a female readership or that this edition was particularly marketed to women. In Holbein’s portrait of Lady Guildford, the sitter holds what might be a copy of this text: an elegant green volume with a tasseled bookmark, labeled by Holbein with its Latin title, Vita Christi (Life of Christ), along the book’s top edge.

Although this panel is one of Holbein’s masterpieces, the dignified sitter, dressed in an ermine fur cap and a fine silk shawl, remained unidentified until 2004, when the animals in the portrait were recognized as likely references to the Lovell family. Anne Lovell (née Ashby; d. 1539) was a wealthy English noblewoman whose husband, Sir Francis Lovell, served King Henry VIII. Her pet red squirrel, restrained by a silver chain and nibbling a hazelnut, alludes to the squirrels on the Lovell family crest. The starling on the left is a play on East Harling (commonly spelled as “Estharlyng” in Tudor times), the location of the Lovell estate in Norfolk, England. Technical studies have shown that Holbein added the animals at a late stage in the painting process, very likely at the request of the patrons.

Sir Nicholas Carew (ca. 1496–1539) carried out several important diplomatic missions in the service of Henry VIII. Made with a painted portrait in mind, this study exemplifies Holbein’s approach to drawing during his first stay in England. Working on a large scale and concentrating his attention on Carew’s face and beard, the artist modeled the man’s features by carefully blending black and colored chalks. Other parts of the drawing, such as the sitter’s upper body and the fluffy feathers that adorn his hat, are described using swiftly drawn yet virtuosic lines. The headgear is covered entirely in black chalk, but the letters gl, inscribed on the headband, would have reminded Holbein that the garment’s actual color was either yellow (gelb) or gold (gold).

With his right hand raised and his left resting on a book and clutching a pair of glasses, the scholar in Quentin Metsys’s painting appears to have been caught at a moment of revelation. His dynamic pose and bold physicality distinguish the man from Holbein’s more stoic, seemingly withdrawn sitters, such as Erasmus and Sir Thomas More. The scholar is situated against a window, with a carefully constructed vista extending into the distance, including a river, a forest, mountains, and a fortified city. Such views, known as world landscapes, were a specialty of Antwerp painters in the 1520s.

Jan Gossaert depicted this self-possessed sitter with a red cross emblazoned on his doublet, a gem-encrusted jewel shaped like a scallop shell hanging around his neck, and an intricate hat badge. Despite such seemingly specific attributes, the man’s identity was lost until the late twentieth century, when he was recognized as Francisco de los Cobos y Molina (ca. 1475/80– 1547), the powerful secretary and advisor to Emperor Charles V. The identification was made by comparing the painting with the portrait medal of Los Cobos.

Portrait medals, which unite a likeness, text (usually name and motto), and personal emblem, can play an important role in identifying distinguished individuals. This medal and its inscription reveal the subject of Jan Gossaert’s corresponding painting. Although it can be challenging to directly compare works of such different mediums, the men’s facial features, hairstyles, and beards appear strikingly similar. Moreover, in both images the sitter wears the scallop-shell pendant of the Order of Santiago, of which Los Cobos was comendador mayor (major commander).

Used as tools for devotion and preparing one’s soul for a Christian death, personal prayer books often featured dance of death imagery. The margins of this Book of Hours include fifty-six such scenes. The manuscript was produced in Paris, and the scenes are supposedly derived from the original dance of death mural, dating to 1424–25 (and destroyed in 1699), in the city’s Cemetery of the Holy Innocents. Here you can see the minuscule, simplistically rendered pope (left) and emperor (right). Unlike the Parisian mural, this dance of death excludes women, which might indicate that the original patron was male.

La danse macabre nouvelle, first printed in 1485 by Guy Marchant, is perhaps the closest reproduction of the Parisian cemetery mural in which dance of death imagery first appeared—most notably, the illustrations include the arcade from the architectural setting as a framing device. The text, also derived from the cemetery mural, is a dialogue wherein death indicates the inevitability of the dance while the protagonists variously bemoan their poorly spent lives and loss of material gain. The printed editions include a dance for men followed by a separate dance for women, each introduced with skeletons playing musical instruments. Produced four decades later, Holbein and Lützelburger’s illustrations would retain the skeletal musicians but intermingle men and women.

Prior to his collaboration with Lützelburger on the prints for Images of Death, Holbein traveled to France, hoping to find employment at the royal court. In Tours, Holbein encountered a workshop of manuscript illuminators, whose illustrations for Books of Hours provided inspiration for at least two death scenes. Holbein converted the workshop’s illustrations of the month of October, featuring a laborer plowing a field (shown in this later manuscript), into Death and the Plowman (or Peasant) for the printed series. In Holbein’s reinterpretation, a rather pastoral scene of agrarian life takes a sinister turn as Death whips the horses onward: the plowman’s toil leads to his demise.

Lützelburger and Holbein reimagined the medieval dance of death into detailed genre scenes where Death catches people amid their daily routines. As in Holbein’s portraits, objects and emblems indicate individuals’ social strata or professions and in some cases mockingly aid in their demise. Lützelburger signed the bed frame in the image of the duchess (fourth frame [far right], top row, print five) with his initials, HL. Lützelburger was an exceptionally skilled blockcutter, more so than the other artists with whom Holbein had worked, and his abilities allowed for the best translation of Holbein’s compositions into print, especially at the small scale of this series.

Creation of Eve

Fall (or Temptation of Adam)

Expulsion from Paradise

Adam Plowing

Skeletons Making Music (or the Cemetery)

Death and the Pope

Death and the Emperor

Death and the King

Death and the Cardinal

Death and the Empress

Death and the Queen

Death and the Bishop

Death and the Duke

Death and the Abbot

Death and the Abbess

Death and the Dean (or Canon)

Death and the Judge

Death and the Nobleman

Death and the Lawyer (or Advocate)

Death and the Councilor

Death and the Clergyman

Death and the Priest (or Preacher)

Death and the Monk (or Mendicant)

Death and the Nun

Death and the Old Woman

Death and the Doctor (or Physician)

Death and the Merchant

Death and the Rich Man

Death and the Skipper (or Sailor)

Death and the Knight

Death and the Count

Death and the Old Man

Death and the Countess

Death and the Noblewoman

Death and the Duchess

Death and the Shopkeeper (or Trader)

Death and the Plowman (or Peasant)

Death and the Child

The Last Judgment

Coat of Arms of Death

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Lützelburger and Holbein’s Images of Death series was always intended to illustrate a printed book. The devotional texts were written by the French poets Nicholas Bourbon (whose portrait by Holbein is also on view) and Jean de Vauzelles or Gilles Corrozet. The introduction states that several of the blocks were incomplete when Lützelburger died. The printers failed to find a blockcutter of equal ability to complete the images (ultimately hiring a less skilled artist), which is why the book was not published until 1538, twelve years after Lützelburger’s death. Nevertheless, the edition was hugely successful and reprinted in Lyon into the 1560s. Holbein’s compositions were copied by dozens of printers and artists across Europe into the nineteenth century.

While producing the Images of Death, Lützelburger and Holbein were also collaborating on a series of illustrations of the Old Testament for the same Lyon printers. Slightly larger than the death scenes, the Old Testament images often feature expansive landscapes reflecting the epic nature of the scriptural narratives. As with the Images of Death, the Old Testament woodblocks were unfinished at Lützelburger’s death; the project was completed by Veit Specklin prior to publication. The woodcuts were used to illustrate this small picture book and a Bible.

Prior to the Images of Death, Holbein designed a Latin alphabet for Lützelburger that showcased the latter’s dexterity at woodcutting. The minuscule compositions expertly render action, emotion, and three-dimensionality—qualities that the other blockcutters who worked with Holbein could not as effectively achieve. The capital letters were intended to be used in a printed book to begin a paragraph or section of text (what is often called a “drop cap” today). This print was produced as an advertisement for Lützelburger, however, and the letters themselves appeared only in a few books published in Basel during the 1520s and ’30s.

Lützelburger had been a blockcutter in Augsburg on several print projects for Emperor Maximilian I. After the Holy Roman emperor’s death in 1519, the imperial workshop closed, and Lützelburger moved to Basel in search of work. Prior to his collaboration with Holbein on the Death Alphabet, Lützelburger produced this sheet (in either Augsburg or Basel) as an advertisement of his abilities engraving the human form, landscape, and text. Lützelburger prominently displayed his name and role (formschneider, meaning “blockcutter”) on the print, while the artist responsible for the design, Hogenberg, is represented with his initials, HN, at the bottom-left corner of the figural composition.

Only this sitter’s name and place of origin (Cornwall, in southwest England) are known today. Yet the complex system of symbols that Holbein developed in this work suggests that the young man might have been a poet conversant in the symbolic language of love. He wears a pink jerkin (close-fitting jacket) and a hat badge decorated with the mythological paramours Leda and the Swan. In his right hand, George holds a red carnation—a symbol of affection and betrothal. Other interpretations are also possible: the carnation may signify Christ’s crucifixion, and the pansies decorating the hat could evoke a meditation on mortality. Recent conservation of the panel allows us to fully appreciate Holbein’s vivid colors and rich surface effects—from the carefully modulated description of George’s skin to the black embroidery of his glossy, puckered jacket.

Holbein drew this image from life, in preparation for the corresponding painted roundel portrait. He employed a delicately layered technique to capture the profile of Simon George of Cornwall, going as far as describing individual wispy hairs that form the sitter’s eyebrow and stubble. Established through the initial sketch, the contour of the head and the facial features could be carried to the painted portrait by tracing outlines onto a panel using paper blackened with chalk. Changes to the composition could be introduced at this stage. In this case, Holbein replaced the stubble on George’s chin with a full beard in the painting, perhaps in accordance with court fashion.

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This pair of intimate roundels might originally have had protective lids (like Holbein’s painting of Philip Melanchthon, also on view), or the panels could have been brought together to form a portable capsule. Compact and more affordable than larger-scale likenesses, the portraits are no less refined and detailed than Holbein’s grander works. The man is dressed in royal livery: a red coat decorated with the elaborately embroidered initials H and R, for Henricus Rex, referring to King Henry VIII. The uniform indicates that the subject served the court in an official capacity. The woman’s relatively demure costume allowed Holbein to explore a variety of textures, such as the thick felt or wool bonnet and the fur trimming of her dress.

At the wedding of the German theologian and reformer Martin Luther (1483–1546) and Katharina von Bora (1499–1552) on 13 June 1525, the artist Lucas Cranach presented the couple with a pair of small, round portraits. He and his workshop then produced several copies for the couple’s close friends and relatives. Cranach’s and Holbein’s roundels reflect the popularity of this format in the early sixteenth century and emphasize the portrait’s importance as a gift that commemorated an event or intimate connection.

Compared to most likenesses in the exhibition, this portrait is relatively plain, without prominent attributes that might help reveal the sitter’s identity. Nevertheless, the woman’s status and wealth are indicated through Holbein’s attention to minute details, such as her ornate rings and the pearl-headed pins that attach her bonnet to her cap and close the translucent cambric at her neck. Her costume resembles that of the younger woman in the small roundel portrait, also included in the exhibition, suggesting that this sitter might also have been the wife of an English court official. The woman’s sullen demeanor is underscored by her tense posture and tightly clasped hands, as well as the downturned corners of her mouth..

Derick Berck, a Hanseatic merchant, gazes warmly at the viewer. His name appears on the folded paper he holds, above his merchant’s mark. The small sheet at left quotes a passage from the ancient Roman poet Virgil, which urges Berck and his descendants—and perhaps the viewer—to be steadfast and courageous in business and life. This statement might have been the sitter’s personal motto. Holbein created a sense of pictorial space by positioning Berck between a table, covered with a red cloth, and a green curtain with a hanging cord. The latter motif recalls the background in the portrait of Sir Thomas More that Holbein made almost a decade earlier, also on view in the exhibition.

Like the two other images of Hanseatic merchants here and here, this portrait eliminates all references to the sitter’s activities in trade and commerce. Instead, it emphasizes his familial associations. The man holds folded gloves and wears a signet ring bearing the coat of arms of the Cologne-based Wedigh family (a black chevron surrounded by three green willow leaves), which partially reveals his identity. Holbein animated the still frontal likeness by slightly enlarging the man’s right eye and raising his right eyebrow. The inscription in the background states the work’s date and the age of its subject. Such refined lettering in Roman capitals had become a standard practice in Holbein’s portraiture by the early 1530s.

Although this sitter elected to be portrayed with no identifying attributes, his sober attire—a black gown over a black doublet with satin sleeves and a high-collared white shirt tied at the neck— suggests that he was a member of the Hanseatic League. The work was painted on the occasion of the man’s thirty-third birthday. Reaching this number of years often led to commemorative portrait commissions, as it was the age at which Christ was believed to have been crucified.

Netherlandish painter Jan Gossaert portrayed this merchant within a busy, enclosed space, surrounded by tools of his trade—an inkpot and quill pens, a talc shaker for drying ink, and a pair of scales for weighing coins. In sumptuous attire, the young man radiates self-assurance. Holbein likely encountered Gossaert’s work in 1532, when he was passing through the Netherlands on his way to England for the second time. Although the character of this portrait is very different from Holbein’s other depictions of members of the Hanseatic League, scholars have argued that the painting directly influenced his likeness of the merchant Georg Gisze, now in Berlin.

Like all portrait drawings that Holbein made during his later years in England, this work is relatively small and on paper toned with a light-pink ground. The pink preparation allowed Holbein to efficiently render his White European sitters’ complexions by adding lighter and darker colors to its warm-hued middle tone. Although this man’s identity is unknown, the felt cap and hooded robe suggest that he was a scholar or cleric. Now in the collection of the Getty Museum, this is the only portrait drawing securely attributed to Holbein in the United States.

Nicholas Bourbon (ca. 1503–1549/50), a poet and humanist in the court of Henry VIII, was a friend and admirer of Holbein’s, marveling at the lifelikeness of the artist’s portraits in his verses. In this work, which served as a preparatory study for a woodcut illustrating Bourbon’s Paidagogeion— a didactic poem influenced by the writings of Erasmus—Holbein turned his gaze toward the poet himself. Bourbon holds a quill pen in his quickly sketched right hand, as if actively composing. In keeping with his friend’s interest in Greek and Roman culture, Holbein portrayed him in profile, reminiscent of an ancient coin.

This portrait of Philip Melanchthon (1497–1560), the famous Protestant reformer, recalls the images of erudite men that Holbein painted during his years in Basel. Holbein never met Melanchthon and probably relied on a print as the basis for the likeness. This is the only known complete kapselbild (portrait with a lid) by the artist, and its inscription asserts that Holbein’s art rivals nature, a well-known theme from antiquity that would have appealed to Melanchthon as well as to the recipient of this object. Given its elaborate decoration and sophisticated theme, the piece may have been intended as a gift for someone of high status, perhaps even King Henry VIII of England.

This likeness conveys the poise of a woman of distinction, probably a member of the English court. The sitter’s serene features are balanced by the emphatic yet decorous gesture of her clasped hands. Holbein’s sumptuous palette and use of gold—on her fashionable French hood, the gleaming jeweled medallion affixed to her gown, and even the tiny pin fastening her black sleeve— date this portrait to the last years of his career but provide no clues to the sitter’s identity. The medallion, which shows two figures standing on either side of a fire, might represent an Old Testament scene.

This is the only known manuscript illumination by Holbein. The animal and foliate forms of the letter E recall his designs for woodcut letters as well as for jewelry and metalwork. The illumination decorates the beginning of a manual for using an astronomical instrument (the horopterum) to determine the times of sunrise and sunset. The author was the royal astronomer Nicholas Kratzer, whose portrait Holbein painted in 1528 (now at the Louvre, Paris). Kratzer dedicated this manuscript to King Henry VIII, who was keenly interested in scientific pursuits, and likely presented it to the king as a New Year’s gift.

This assured drawing, tinted with watercolor and touches of gold to guide the application of enamel by a goldsmith, is one of Holbein’s most finished designs for a hat badge or medallion. It focuses on the tale of Tantalus, who, according to Greek mythology, was eternally punished by Zeus for abusing the hospitality of the gods. Trapped in a pool beneath an apple tree, Tantalus (the source of the word “tantalize”) strains upward yet cannot reach the fruit to satisfy his hunger. Although he is in undulating water, Tantalus also is not allowed to quench his thirst. Despite its minute scale, the complex composition fully conveys the drama of the story.

William Parr (1513–1571) was the brother of Catherine Parr, the sixth and final wife of King Henry VIII. Renowned for his taste and good looks, Parr is shown wearing a fur-edged gown made of white and purple velvet and satin (as indicated by the artist’s inscriptions). Also included are quick sketches showing details of various jewels that he supposedly wore. The object at upper left probably depicts St. George and the Dragon, likely a reference to George as a patron saint of the chivalric Order of the Garter, to which Parr belonged. Below, Holbein included a study of a jewel inscribed with the word MORS (death), probably part of a longer motto or device.

A large pearl represents the muscled physique of the mythological strongman Hercules. He wears the skin of the Nemean lion, killed in the first of his twelve labors, and hoists one of the pillars of Cádiz from his tenth trial. In the 1500s, the figure of Hercules represented the virtue of fortitude and was the personal symbol of the French king Francis I, who may have commissioned this magnificent pendant.

One of the most popular types of jewels at the English court, the hat badge signaled the taste, wealth, and virtue of its owner. Such pieces could be attached to the brim of a hat with a pin or by stitching through metal loops at the top and bottom. In this work, Prudence, personified by a young woman in ancient Roman dress, regards herself in a mirror—reflecting on the true nature of her character and actions.

This exceptionally large and elaborate hat badge portrays the dramatic climax of a story from the book of Genesis, when an angel stops Abraham as he is about to prove his faith by sacrificing his son Isaac. The high relief of the figures, clever incorporation of gemstones to relay the narrative, and vibrant enamel distinguish this example of exquisite small-scale sculpture

Hat badges incorporated a range of religious and emblematic imagery in a small format. The severed head of St. John the Baptist on a bloody platter was a popular devotional image that related to faith while warning against jealousy and envy. This exceptional example, in which the head of the saint appears in high relief against shimmering red enamel, attests to the vividness and refinement of French jewels.

Depicting the bust of an ancient Roman warrior in a niche, this badge resembles the decoration on prominent new buildings of the day, such as Henry VIII’s palace at Hampton Court, completed in the 1520s. This small-scale sculpture was probably originally enameled, similar to the badge of St. John the Baptist on view nearby, which would have made it more conspicuous and underscored its three-dimensionality. The portrait of Richard Southwell includes an enamelled hat badge of similar form to this example.

Sir Richard Southwell (1502/3–1564) rose to prominence in the last decade of Henry VIII’s reign. During this tumultuous period, which started with the rupture between the English sovereign and the papacy, the court was purged of those deemed insufficiently loyal to the king. Southwell played an important role in the trials of Sir Thomas More and, later, Henry Howard, both of whom were charged with treason and executed. Southwell’s portrait, by contrast, underscores his allegiance to Henry VIII. For instance, the inscription on the background refers to the regnal year rather than the calendar year. The fashionable hat badge, in the form of a female bust, also ties Southwell to the culture of luxury and erudition that characterized the Henrician court.

Holbein’s ingenious designs for emblems and heraldry attest to his skill and to the popularity of such articles in Tudor England. Two drawings at top, likely intended as plans for precious objects, show a hand emerging from the clouds and resting on a closed book. Both feature the same motto in Italian: “I desire to observe that which I have sworn.” The circular format and Italian inscriptions connect these miniature compositions with Holbein’s painted An Allegory of Passion, thus revealing the artist’s ability to convey related ideas in a variety of scales and mediums. Designs for Holbein’s own heraldic arms, featuring a bull’s head, are included at the center of the mount.

Now trimmed and mounted as small individual drawings, these studies for jeweled pendants and other types of metalwork were likely part of a sketchbook of Holbein’s designs known as the “Jewelry Book.” Lot and His Wife is the only surviving design for a jewel that also appears in one of Holbein’s paintings—Portrait of a Woman, Possibly from the Cromwell Family. It remains unclear, however, whether the artist designed the medallion himself or if this sketch records an object already owned by the sitter. It is equally possible that the jewel is an imaginary piece, invented by Holbein to embellish the portrait and its subject.

This woman’s embroidered cuffs and the gold decorations along her sleeves and headdress attest to her high status and likely association with the court. The portrait’s early history links it to the family of Thomas Cromwell, chancellor to King Henry VIII, and suggests that the sitter might have been a member of that prominent clan. Her intricate medallion depicts the biblical story of Lot and his wife in minute scale: An angel leads the pair away from the destruction of Sodom and tells them not to look back. Lot’s wife disregards the warning and is turned into a pillar of salt— represented here by a large rectangular gem at the center of the jewel. The medallion corresponds with the drawn design by Holbein on view nearby.

These minute designs were intended for fabrication by goldsmiths and jewelers, who incorporated the intricate forms into the borders and clasps of their products. The drawings demonstrate Holbein’s refined technique, particularly his command of arabesques. The artist used similar forms to decorate the corners of his painting An Allegory of Passion.

These designs for book-jewels were intended to be fashioned in gold and black enamel. The two on the top row feature rings that could be attached to a girdle, chain, or necklace. These metalwork covers also bear the initials of Thomas Wyatt the Younger (TW) and his wife, Joan (IW), which have been incorporated into fluid arabesques, a style fashionable in the English court in the period. The decorative patterns on these and other book-jewels were derived from ornamental motifs found on bookbindings.

The binding of this devotional book is tooled in gold in a popular style of foliate ornament. First seen in Islamic manuscripts and artwork, this type of arabesque spread north into Europe through Italy and Spain, where it was used across an array of decorative arts. Reflecting the demand for such motifs, Holbein designed miniature book covers to be fabricated in gold and enamel as precious versions of gold-and-leather bindings. This example by an unknown artisan incorporates the name of the female patron for whom it was made.

Witty, inventive, and occasionally satirical, the poet Thomas Wyatt (ca. 1503–1542) exerted wide influence in cultured courtly circles. An important early translator of poems by Francesco Petrarch (1304–1374), Wyatt introduced the Italian sonnet form to England. Holbein portrayed Wyatt not as a writer, with book and pen, but as a courtier, perhaps in recognition of his recent knighthood. The artist rendered Wyatt’s identifying feature, his luxuriant beard, with a combination of animated strokes of ink and black, brown, and yellow chalks.

Holbein’s commemorative portrait bust of Thomas Wyatt is accompanied by laudatory verses by John Leland, a royal antiquarian and Wyatt’s longtime friend. Wyatt appears in a roundel frame, with his characteristic full beard. He is bareheaded and wears a tunic in the manner of an ancient philosopher, in keeping with his own poetry and Leland’s verses. The lines above the portrait praise Holbein’s artistic mastery while acknowledging painting’s inability to represent a subject’s mind or spirit—a sentiment expressed in portraits of Erasmus that are also on view.

Henry Howard (1516/17–1547)—a poet, soldier, and protégé of Thomas Wyatt—was still a teenager when he posed for this forthright yet delicate portrait. Holbein paid close attention to the almost imperceptible irregularities of the young man’s features, such as the slightly different shapes of Howard’s brown eyes and eyelids. The artist shaded the right side of the sitter’s face with a combination of black and red chalks, which he carefully blended by rubbing or stumping to produce a sculptural effect.

Charles de Solier, Comte de Morette, (1480–1552) served as French ambassador to the court of Henry VIII on several occasions between 1526 and 1535. He commissioned this portrait medal to commemorate his illustrious career. The round format and high relief of Christoph Weiditz’s portrait bust help convey Morette’s imposing presence, with his square beard and fur-lined gown. Weiditz likely based Morette’s likeness on Holbein’s portrait of the diplomat, (illustrated at right) now part of the Dresden State Art Collections.

The central image of a rider astride a galloping horse embodies a lover’s quest for the heart of his beloved, as conveyed by the inscription below, taken from a work by the Italian poet Francesco Petrarch (1304–1374). Unique in Holbein’s oeuvre, the painting may have been a personal emblem or part of a series of images celebrating the theme of love. The foliate patterns are related to those Holbein used in his designs for decorative metalwork and on the book-jewel drawings for the Wyatt family. The unknown patron of the painting was likely an English courtier devoted to Petrarch’s poetry, perhaps Thomas Wyatt or Henry Howard.