The background is green, and across the top of the panel runs the inscription: “THOMAS · DVKE · OFF · NORFOLK · MARSHALL · AND TRESVRER OFF · INGLONDE THE · LXVI YERE · OF · HIS · AGE.” It is now almost illegible, through the passage of time and over-painting, but can be deciphered by the aid of the exactly similar inscription on the Arundel picture. This, as already stated, gives the date of the portrait as about 1540. The inscription, however, is not contemporary, but was probably added some hundred years later, in the reign of Charles I, when the picture was in the collection of the Earl of Arundel. It was finely etched by Vorsterman when in the Earl’s possession, in 1630, though without the inscription, but beneath the plate is engraved: “Hans Holbein pinxit. Visitur in Ædibus Arondelianis Londini.” This does not necessarily prove that the inscription on the panel did not exist at that date, as Vorsterman may have omitted it as disfiguring. That it was certainly there fifteen years later is proved by a coloured drawing on vellum by Philip Fruytiers, the Antwerp painter, dated 1645, a copy of a study by Van Dyck representing a large group of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, his wife, and family. On the wall in the background Van Dyck had inserted, and Fruytiers has copied, on the one side, this very portrait of the Duke of Norfolk by Holbein, in which the inscription across the top of it in gold letters can be plainly seen, and on the other side the portrait of his son, the Earl of Surrey, also evidently a work by Holbein, though the original painting is now lost, which is inscribed: “HENRY HOWARD ERLE OF SUHRY ANNO ÆTATIS SVÆ 25.” This water-colour drawing, which is signed “An. Vandyke inv. Ph. Fruytiers fecit 1645,” is in the collection of the Duke of Sutherland, and there is a small copy of it in oils on copper at Norfolk House, which also shows the inscription. It was engraved by Vertue in 1743. The original sketch or composition by Van Dyck has been lost. [Illustration: VOL. II., PLATE 25 THOMAS HOWARD, DUKE OF NORFOLK WINDSOR CASTLE ] [Sidenote: PORTRAIT OF THOMAS HOWARD]