[2] In 1903 Sir Richard Holmes identified this painting, one of a number of portrait miniatures of English origin in the possession of the Queen of the Netherlands, as the work of Hans Holbein the Younger.

[3] He suggested that the unidentified youth "apparently of fifteen or sixteen years of age" might possibly be one of the family of a Hanseatic merchant of the Steelyard in London "like the admirable head of Derek Born".

"[7] In 1913 Georg Habich discovered another portrait miniature of an unknown young man by Hans Holbein the Younger in the Danzig Stadtmuseum.

[10] In 1708, after the male line of the Schwarzwald family had died out, the portrait, together with a library and a coin collection, formed part of a legacy left to the church of Saints Peter and Paul in Danzig.

The portrait was looted from the Danzig Stadtmuseum by the German occupation forces in 1943, then claimed by the Soviet Union's Red Army as spoils of war in 1945.

Hans Holbein died between 7 October, when he made his will at his home in Aldgate, and 29 November 1543, when John of Antwerp carried out the artist's last wishes.

[23] The year 1543 is significant for two reasons: Henry VIII married his sixth wife, Catherine Parr and the "King's painter", Hans Holbein died.

[25] In 2003 Quentin Buvelot noted that "On the basis of the similarity of facial features and in particular the characteristic angle of the cropped hair, it could even be conjectured that the two portraits depict the same person.

"[35] The "Z or N detail on the signet ring" in the 1543 portrait can be accounted for by Gregory Cromwell's coat of arms, "if it is seen as a zig-zag, or in heraldic terms, a fess indented.