Head of a female saint

A painted head this small, not much bigger than a hand, does not usually survive 500 years by chance. This one owes its life to a collector. Most of the Kunstmuseum's Holbeins, early fragments like this saint's head from about 1515 among them, came through the Amerbach Cabinet, the collection built up by the Basel lawyer Basilius Amerbach late in the 16th century, who bought heavily from the circle around Holbein's old workshop. In 1661 the city and the university of Basel bought the whole cabinet together, a purchase often described as the first public art collection anywhere, held by citizens rather than a prince. That is how a face this fragile is still on a wall in Basel today.