Sir Henry Guildford (1489-1532)

Holbein was a newcomer to England when he painted this. He had come over from Basel in 1526, carrying a letter of introduction from the scholar Erasmus to Thomas More, and he needed to prove himself. Sir Henry Guildford was a useful man to impress: Comptroller of Henry VIII's household, Master of the Revels, one of the king's trusted companions. Holbein shows him in full state, in a fur-trimmed coat and the gold chain of the Order of the Garter, which he had received the year before. In his hand is a white staff, the plain wooden badge of his office at court. A surviving chalk study shows Holbein quietly slimming the face as he worked, flattering a heavy man. Five years on, Guildford was dead, and Holbein would come back to England to become the painter of Henry's whole court.