A Lady with a Squirrel and a Starling (Anne Lovell?)
Hans Holbein the Youngerabout 1526-8
The National Gallery, London
London, United Kingdom
A solemn woman wearing a soft cap of dense white fur sits with a red squirrel in her lap and a glossy-feathered starling at her shoulder. Common pets in the fifteenth-century, these animals also have a symbolic meaning and serve as clues to the sitter’s identity. She is thought to be Anne Lovell, whose husband, Sir Francis Lovell, was employed at the court of Henry VIII, King of England.
The starling is probably intended as a rhyming pun of East Harling, where the family had recently inherited a large estate. Squirrels nibbling on nuts feature on the heraldry of the Lovell family: the windows of the church at East Harling include two of the family’s coats of arms in stained glass, each showing six red squirrels. The commission may commemorate the birth of a son to the couple in the spring of 1526, but it also showed off their new status as wealthy landowners.
Text: © The National Gallery, London
Painting photographed in its frame by Google Arts & Culture, 2023.
- Title: A Lady with a Squirrel and a Starling (Anne Lovell?)
- Creator: Hans Holbein the Younger
- Date Created: about 1526-8
- Physical Dimensions: 56 x 38.8 cm
- Medium: Oil on oak
- School: German
- More Info: Explore the National Gallery’s paintings online
- Inventory number: NG6540
- Artist Dates: 1497/8 - 1543
- Artist Biography: Holbein was one of the most accomplished portraitists of the 16th century. He spent two periods of his life in England (1526-8 and 1532-43), portraying the nobility of the Tudor court. Holbein's famous portrait of Henry VIII (London, National Portrait Gallery) dates from the second of these periods. 'The Ambassadors', also from this period, depicts two visitors to the court of Henry VIII. 'Christina of Denmark' is a portrait of a potential wife for the king. Holbein was born in Augsburg in southern Germany in the winter of 1497-8. He was taught by his father, Hans Holbein the Elder. He became a member of the Basel artists' guild in 1519. He travelled a great deal, and is recorded in Lucerne, northern Italy and France. In these years he produced woodcuts and fresco designs as well as panel paintings. With the spread of the Reformation in Northern Europe the demand for religious images declined and artists sought alternative work. Holbein first travelled to England in 1526 with a recommendation to Thomas More from the scholar Erasmus. In 1532 he settled in England, dying of the plague in London in 1543. Holbein was a highly versatile and technically accomplished artist who worked in different media. He also designed jewellery and metalwork.
- Acquisition Credit: Bought with contributions from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and The Art Fund and Mr J. Paul Getty Jnr (through the American Friends of the National Gallery, London), 1992
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