A Lady with a Squirrel and a Starling (Anne Lovell?)

Holbein painted this during his first trip to England, around 1527, years before he became Henry VIII's court portraitist. The sitter is probably Anne Lovell, wife of a gentleman attendant at the royal court, and the two animals are quiet clues to who she was. Squirrels appear on the Lovell family arms, and the starling is likely a pun on East Harling, the Norfolk estate the couple had recently inherited. The pet squirrel, on its little chain, cracks a nut against her wrist. Holbein worked from close observation, and the fur, the fig leaves behind her, and the bird's speckled feathers are all set down with the same patient exactness.