Who was Holbein's Lady with a squirrel and a starling? Ever since it was acquired by the National Gallery, London, in 1992 this celebrated English portrait by Holbein has remained tantalisingly anonymous. A detective trail has led David J King to East Harling in Norfolk, where clues in stained glass and a tomb reveal the sitter's identity

The portrait of a Lady with a squirrel and a starling by means of Hans Holbein the Younger, in the National Gallery, London (Fig. 1) has hitherto defied all attempts at identifying its control a demurely but well-dressed young woman sitting against a plain cerulean background and holding in her lap a favorite squirrel on a chain eating a nut A starling, perhaps also a fondling sits on a fig tree in the background with its beak pointing at her right ear. It has been remind ofed that the pets may have an heraldic or other significance which could lead to her identity, and that the lady's resemblance to single of the figures in the preparatory drawing for the not to be found painting of the family of Sir Thomas More points to her having tend hitherward from More's family or acquaintances, or at least from the influential court circles from whom Holbein drew his clientele at this time. The portrait is dated by means of general agreement on style to Holbein's first visit to England, in 1526-28 (1)

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newly the painting was part of the 'Gothic: Art for England' exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Another exhibit was the and zinc portrait relief attributed to Torrigiano of Sir Thomas Lovell (Fig. 2) and it was the combination of these sum of two units exhibits that suggested to the not away writer the solution to the vexed question of the lady's identity. (2) Sir Thomas Lovell KG serv the political division under both Henry VII and Henry VIII as Chancellor of the Exchequer, knight of the king's material substance and Speaker of the House of belonging to alls He was made a Knight of the Garter in 1503 and his portrait relief, encloseed by the Garter, is contemplation to have been made for the gatehouse of the residence he built at East Harling in Norfolk that survived until the early nineteenth hundred (3) The manor of East Harling had previously belonged to Sir Edmund Bedingfield, knight, and before that to the Harling family, who had rebuilt the meeting-house in the fifteenth century. (4) The main lights of the cast chancel window of the meeting-house there are filled with a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of fine painted glass of c 1475-80 greatest in quantity of which was originally made for the east window of the southern aisle. Tucked away in the tracery, put in modern foliage, sits a large, finely-painted r squirrel cracking a nut the badge of the Lovell (Fig. 3) and amongst fragments station in the cast window of the southerly aisle are two shields of arms of the Lovell family, each depicting six more r squirrels, all in glass of the 1520 and originally from the east chancel window, where it had been until the 1930 (5) Many further squirrels appear upon the three Lovell tombs in the meeting-house (6) The association of a r squirrel eating a nut with a individual with such close connections to royal circles immediately give an inkling ofed that the portrait's secret might be discoverable, and this was in a short time confirmed by the realisation that the starling was a quibble on 'East Harling'. That made the case flat stronger, and it then remained to gaze into the Lovell family at East Harling at the time of Holbein's first visit to diocese whether it still had after Sir Thomas' death in 1524 the necessary social connections to have brought it into contact with the court milieu from which Holbein drew his patronage.

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The Lovell family

Sir Thomas died without issue and left plenteous of his estate, including various manors in East Harling with the advowson of the meeting-house to his 'cosyn' Francis Lovell who was single of the executors of his will. (7) The elucidation of the history of the Lovell family before Sir Thomas Lovell KG is fraught with difficulties and many contradictory accounts have been written; as a ensue the relationship between Sir Thomas and Francis has not at any time been established beyond doubt. The greatest in quantity likely is that they were uncle and nephew, and that the of frequent occurrence references by Sir Thomas to his 'cosyn' Francis used the word in its now fallen into desuetude sense of 'a collateral relative more distant than a brother or sister formerly very frequently applied to a nephew or niece'. (8) According to this account, Francis Lovell was the son of Sir Gregory Lovell of Barton Bendish, earlier born brother of Sir Thomas Lovell KG and his mother was Margaret Brandon, daughter of Sir Williant Brandon. His paternal grandparents would have been Thomas Lovell of Barton Bendish, who died in 1479 and Anne, daughter of Robert Toppes, alderman of Norwich, who died in 1467 (9) The earliest respect to Francis was his appointment as esquire of the material part to Henry VIII in 1516 an office his uncle Sir Thomas had held in 1485 below Henry VII. (10) In the years immediately preceding his uncle's demise, Francis serv him at his residences at Halywell in Shoredirch, London, and Elsynge in Enfield, Middlesex, receiving payment as a gentleman waiter and attending his funeral as a high hilled mourner in livery. (11) Although Francis would have inherited the manors of East Harling immediately after Sir Thomas's death upon 25 May 1524, as an executor to the will he would have been plenteous exercised in administering the distribution of his uncle's vast estate and it would have been a certain number of time before he was able to take up residence in Norfolk. Indeed, Sir Thomas made provision in his will for Francis to stay for sum of two units years at his manor at Halywell in London, provided that he also allowed access to his other executors 'for of that kind busyness as they shalhave to doo aboute my funeral and for thexecucion and performance of this my Testament and last Wille'. (12)