Portrait of a Lady, probably a Member of the Cromwell Family

Holbein painted this around 1540, near the end of his years as the portraitist of Henry VIII's court, and it carries the danger of that moment lightly. The young woman, her age given as 21 in gold letters, is dressed richly but soberly against a plain blue-grey ground. Her name is lost. The picture stayed with the Cromwell family for generations, which is why she is thought to belong to it, and one suggestion is that she is Elizabeth Seymour, sister of the late queen Jane and daughter-in-law of Thomas Cromwell, the king's chief minister. In 1540 Cromwell fell from favour and was executed. Later owners guessed freely at her identity, at one point labelling her a queen of France.