HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER (1497/8-1543)
William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury
1527RCIN 912272
A diplomat and scholar, William Warham (1450?–1532) was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, the most senior churchman in England, in 1503. He was also Lord Chancellor between 1504 and 1515. Warham was a patron of the philosopher Erasmus and in 1527 commissioned a portrait from Holbein to send to his friend. This drawing is a study for the painting now in the Louvre and shows the elderly bishop, then in his late seventies, in calm contemplation.
watermark: Briquet 1827: fleur de lys in crowned shield [same as 12268,12266]