Portrait of a gentleman with a rolled sheet of paper in his hand, half-length

This intriguing painting constitutes an important visual document of a lost painting by Hans Holbein II, also known through a drawing by Federico Zuccaro sold Sotheby's, London, 3 July 2013, lot 17 (fig. 1). A painting with this composition but, as with the Zuccaro drawing, depicting the sitter with a martyr's palm also appears in a painted collector's cabinet of 1617 by Frans Francken II in the collection of the Duke of Northumberland. The figure appears again seated at a table in another of Francken's painting of a collector's cabinet with the celebrated scholar Justus Lipsius from a few years earlier (see U. Härting, Frans Francken der Jüngere (1581-1642): die Gemälde mit kritischem Œuvrekatalog, Freren, 1989, p. 369, no. 445, illustrated). The palm branch formerly held by the sitter in the present portrait may indicate that the gentleman was a member of the Brotherhood of Jerusalem Pilgrims.

Dendrochronological testing by Professor Dr. Peter Klein suggests the tree used to make this panel was felled around 1513, with the earliest usage date for the panel being around 1515. Infrared reflectography of the present lot (fig. 2) reveals underdrawing for a coat-of-arms at upper left and writing at upper right as well as evidence of a palm branch which was subsequently painted out.