A Lady with a Squirrel and a Starling

A Lady with a Squirrel and a Starling
Artist Hans Holbein the Younger
Year 1526–28
Medium Oil on oak
Dimensions 56 cm × 38.7 cm (22 in × 15.2 in)
Location National Gallery, London

A Lady with a Squirrel and a Starling is an oil on oak painting undertaken between 1526 and 1528 by the German artist Hans Holbein the Younger.[1] Although the sitter was unknown for some time, it is thought to be Anne Lovell, the wife of Francis, a squire to Henry VIII; according to Derek Wilson, Holbein's biographer, "the squirrel was Lovell's heraldic badge and the starling is a pun on 'East Harling'", which was Lovell's ancestral seat.[2] It is unlikely that the sitter posed with the animals, which were likely to have been separate sittings by Holbein.[3]

The painting was probably undertaken during Holbein's first visit to Britain in 1526–28,[3] and it contains azurite, copper resinate, lead white, lamp black, red earth, Cologne earth and vermilion pigments, held in a linseed oil binder.[4]

The painting was acquired in 1992 by the National Gallery in London,[1] which considers it to be "a wonderfully preserved example of Holbein's art at its most evocative".[5]

In 2014 King and McGaw partnered with Art Everywhere, a charitable project putting on the world's largest art exhibition displayed 25 artworks on 30,000 billboards across the UK including A Lady with a Squirrel and a Starling. The profits of the campaign went to the Art Fund.[6]

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