Note 481 — Chapter XXIV · THE LAST YEARS: 1540-1543

This picture was traditionally said to have been begun in France by Janet (Clouet), and Vertue thought it might have been retouched by Holbein, “as it was probably painted for his patron, the Duke of Norfolk, from whom it descended immediately to the Earl of Arundel, out of whose collection the father of the present possessor (Colonel Sotheby) purchased it.” (See Walpole, Anecdotes, ed. Wornum, i. p. 95.) It was lent to the Tudor Exhibition, 1890, by Major-Gen. F. E. Sotheby, No. 145. The only entry in the Arundel inventory which it is just possible might refer to this picture is “Un quadretto con diverse figure Jocatori, etc.,” which is given to Holbein.