Article: 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.(Critical Essay)(Cover Story)

The portrait of a Lady with a squirrel and a starling by Hans Holbein the Younger, in the National Gallery, London (Fig. 1), has hitherto defied all attempts at identifying its subject, a demurely but well-dressed young woman sitting against a plain blue background and holding in her lap a pet squirrel on a chain eating a nut. A starling, perhaps also a pet, sits on a fig tree in the background with its beak pointing at her right ear. It has been suggested that the pets may have an heraldic or other significance which could lead to her identity, and that the lady's resemblance to one of the figures in the preparatory drawing for the lost painting of the family of Sir ...

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