This drawing is unique in including the inscription which appeared on the painting which followed it (below).

Holbein has turned the sheet at right angles to annotate the drawing with his observation of the colour of Southwell’s eyes: a little yellow. The painting follows the drawing precisely. The drawing also provided the positions for the tubercular scars visible on Southwell’s neck and face.

Holbein has left Southwell’s hat badge blank; it was no doubt to be the subject of another drawing.

The drawing shows signs of transfer to the panel by reinforcement of the outlines with metalpoint.

Sir Richard Southwell (1502/3/4–1564) was an MP, administrator and diplomat.

Holbein’s use of shadow increases the sense that Southwell shares our space rather than occupying his own; the illusionism of his painting of the black silks and satins of Southwell’s coat heightens this impression, as do the subtle transitions between shadows and highlights in the flesh painting.

On Southwell’s hat is a badge with the bust of a moorish woman of gold and agate, the blank of the drawing now filled.

The significance of the date in the inscription is not known, but its precision is highly unusual in Holbein’s portraits of English sitters.

The drawing shows signs of transfer to the panel by reinforcement of the outlines with metalpoint.

This drawing is closely related to the miniature portrait (shown in the case to the left).

Holbein may have used a simple geometrical method to decrease the size of his portrait drawings until they matched the size of likeness needed for his miniatures: the device known as the pantograph which made such diminutions in size mechanically is unknown before the seventeenth century, but differently sized images could be produced with the aid of compasses.

The small drawing of a woman with naked breasts top right is possibly a sketch for a jewel similar to the hat badge of Sir Richard Southwell (shown nearby).

This drawing was not made from life but from the bust of Colet attributed to Pietro Torrigiano, a cast of which is displayed nearby. The lower edge of the bust can be clearly seen in the drawing, making it evident that it could not have been created from life; in any case Colet (1467–1519) had died before Holbein first came to England.

John Colet, humanist scholar and founder of St Paul’s School, was a close friend of Erasmus and Sir Thomas More. The drawing was presumably made in preparation for a posthumous painted portrait for an admirer of Colet.

The lost original has been attributed to the Italian sculptor Pietro Torrigiano or Torrigiani, who worked in England from 1511 to the early 1520s, designing the tomb of Henry VII in Westminster Abbey as well as other sculpture, including marble, bronze and terracotta busts and tombs.

Only casts of the bust survive, which was probably made after a death mask. The original may have inspired part of the second monument to Colet in St Paul’s Cathedral, erected in the sixteenth century but destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666.

This carefully composed drawing is likely to be a preparatory sketch for a painting. The pose and appearance of the boy on the right resembles that of Henry Brandon, the future Duke of Suffolk, in Holbein’s miniature displayed nearby, but the family cannot be his.

The woman’s costume resembles portraits of the early 1530s. It is therefore likely that the drawing shows Holbein making effective use of a pose for a child that he was to use again nearly a decade later for the miniature of Henry Brandon.

The woman in this careful and beautifully fluid study wears a costume very similar to that worn by Lady Guildford in the painting dated 1527 in the St Louis Art Museum. It may be a second study for the portrait, in which Holbein recorded details of the dress, probably modelled by a servant.

Whether or not this is the case, the fact that he drew a back view as well as the front shows Holbein was particularly concerned to understand the structure of English costume. Such costume drawings were a useful part of a workshop repertoire.

This coloured costume study is one of only two which survive from Holbein’s visits to England (the other is shown nearby). Unlike that study, in which the subject is carefully posed, this seems not to be connected with a specific portrait, but is drawn as if to record the dress of a passer-by, holding her dress above the ground as she walks.

The costume resembles those seen in the More family drawing (Room 1), and the drawing may date from the first visit to England, or possibly from early in the second.