- Museum number
- SL,5308.8
- Description
-
Design for a metalwork book-cover, from the 'Jewellery Book'; symmetrical design of arabesques with initials between, "TWI" above and "IWT" below
Pen and black ink, with black, grey and yellow wash
- Production date
- 1537 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 79 millimetres
-
Width: 59 millimetres
- Curator's comments
- This and Sl,5308.10 are designs to be used by goldsmiths for the covers of girdle-books, which were in vogue in the sixteenth century. As Hugh Tait has indicated, the designs were probably executed in black enamel on gold, as for instance on the girdle-book of about 1540 in the British Museum (Department of Prehistory and Europe, inv. no.1894,0729.1 ; H.Tait (ed) 7000 years of Jewellery, London, British Museum, 2006, (3rd ed) col. pl. 24; for a fuller discussion of girdle-books, see Hugh Tait, 'The Girdle-prayerbook' in 'Jewellery Studies' 1985, vol. 2, pp. 29-57.). Within the intricate arabesque patterns on each, the initials of the intended recipients, evidently the husband as well as the wife, who would carry the girdle-book, are placed in varying order and position. Chamberlain proposed that these designs were probably intended for the poet, Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-42; see A.B. Chamberlain, 'Hans Holbein the Younger', London, 1913, p.280). Marsham suggested that the initials might either stand for Thomas Wyatt Junior (beheaded, 1554), or for Thomas and Jane Wyatt, Sir Thomas Wyatt the younger having married Jane Hawste in 1537 (see T. Marsham. 'Archaeologia', xliv, pt ii, 1873, p.259). Of these two suggestions, the latter has more to recommend it. The association with the Wyatt family in any case is supported by the relationship between the details of the pattern on SL,5308.8, and that on the metal cover of a prayerbook belonging to the descendants of the Wyatt family (see R. Marsham, op. cit., p. 262, repr.). It is very likely that this cover, which lacks initials, was based either directly on SL,5308.8 or on a derivation of it.
For earlier literature, see: J. Rowlands, 'German Drawings in the British Museum, by artists born before 1530', 2 vols. London, British Museum Press,1993, no. 333(a)
Additional literature: D. Starkey, 'Henry VIII' exhibition catalogue, Greenwich National Maritime Museum, 1991, p.112, no.VII.14; S. Foister, 'Holbein and England', New Haven and London, 2004, p.144, fig.150; S. Foister, 'Holbein in England', exhibition, London, Tate Britain, 2006, no. 90; Olenka Horbatsch, 'Hans Holbein the Younger as Designer for Goldsmiths in Tudor England' in A Royal Renaissance Treasure and its Afterlives: The Royal Clock Salt, eds. D. Thornton and T. Schroder, London 2021, fig. 78; Woollett 2021, cat. no. 70.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1934 BM, Exhibition of English Art, no.388a
1987 Feb-May, BM, An A-Z of P&D (no cat)
1988 BM, The Age of Dürer and Holbein, no.207a
1991 May-Sept, London, NMM, 'Henry VIII', no. VII.14
2006/7 Sep-Jan, London, Tate Britain, 'Holbein in England', no.90
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,5308.8
- Additional IDs
-
Miscellaneous number: Add.5308.a (Dept. of Manuscripts Mss no.)
