- Museum number
- SL,5308.25
- Description
-
Medallion of Lot with his family, guided by an angel, fleeing from Sodom, one of ten designs for medallions, from the 'Jewellery Book'; stone set at the centre into the figure of a woman, town in flames at l, an angel leading Lot and two other figures away at r, inscribed scroll beneath, circular
Pen and brown ink, with grey wash, cut octagonally
- Production date
- 1532-1543 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 50 millimetres
-
Width: 50 millimetres (diameter)
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- See also SL,5308.1-179
Rowlands 1993
LITERATURE: Waagen, Treasures, i, p. 203; BM Guide, 1862 (1867), p. 6, no. 9.3; Woltmann, i, p. 439, ii, p. 133, no. 187; LB, ii, p. 339, no. 35e; Chamberlain, ii, pp. 195f, 283, pl. 50, 2; Ganz, p. 61, no. 290, repr.; White, p. 560, no. 28; Sutton Place, Renaissance, p. 79, no. 66 111 e; Woollett 2021, cat. no. 50.
This is the only surviving design for a medallion worn by a sitter in one of Holbein's painted portraits. The portrait in question is that of a lady, probably a member of the Cromwell family, in the Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio (Rowlands, ‘Holbein’, p. 146, no. 69, repr.). This was formerly thought, on no real evidence, to have been the portrait of Queen Catherine Howard (L. Cust, ‘Burlington’, xvii, 1910, p. 195), and accepted as such until the identification was questioned by Strong, following the lead of C. Adams (‘Genealogists' Magazine’, xiv, London, 1964, pp. 386-7), who has very plausibly argued in favour of the sitter being a member of the Cromwell family (‘Burlington’, cix, 1967, pp. 278, 281).
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1983 May-Sep, Sutton Place, Guildford, 'Renaissance', no. 66iii
2021-22, 19 Oct-9 Jan, Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Holbein: Capturing Character in the Renaissance
2022, 11 Feb-15 May, New York, The Morgan Library & Museum, Holbein: Capturing Character in the Renaissance
- Acquisition date
- 1753
- Acquisition notes
- Transferred from the Dept. of Manuscripts to Prints + Drawings on 20 July 1860. For a history of the contents of Sloane 5308, see SL,5308.1.
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- SL,5308.25
- Additional IDs
-
Miscellaneous number: Add.5308.a (Dept. of Manuscripts Mss no.)
