To the year 1542 belongs the small portrait of an unknown Englishman in the Hague Gallery (No. 277) (Pl. 28),[432] which, again, is brilliant in execution, the details painted with the minutest care, but with a touch both delicate and free from all hardness, and unusual richness of colour. The head is full-face, the body turned slightly to the left. His closely cropped hair is chestnut in colour, turning to red at the ends of his moustache and short pointed beard. It is almost the only portrait by Holbein in which the sitter is shown without a hat. He wears a dress of black velvet and watered silk with a pattern, slashed with red silk at the shoulder and wrist. On his left hand, which is gloved, stands his falcon, a large bell on its claw. His right hand, in which he holds the bird’s hood, is ungloved, with a gold ring set with a stone on the little finger. The light falls from the right, and the shadow on the left side of the face is more strongly marked than in most of Holbein’s portraits. The modelling is fine, the face full of strong character, and, as usual, the hands are most expressively painted, the whole presentment being most vivid and life-like. The background is a plain blue-grey, of much the same tone as that in the portrait of 1541 at Vienna. Across the panel is inscribed, on either side of the head, the date 1542, and lower down “ANNO · ETATIS · SVÆ · XXVIII.” Little is known about the history of this picture, except that it was at one time in the royal collections of England, and that it was taken to Holland by William III, and was included in the list of works of art reclaimed by Queen Anne after that King’s death.[433] Like the portrait of Cheseman, however, it remained abroad. It is inscribed on the back “The manner of Holbein,” and in old catalogues was absurdly described as a portrait of Sir Thomas More. Footnote 432: Woltmann, 160. Reproduced by Mantz, p. 171; Ganz, _Holbein_, p. 129. Footnote 433: No. 21. “A man’s head with a hawk by Holbein.” [Illustration: VOL. II., PLATE 28 PORTRAIT OF AN UNKNOWN MAN WITH A FALCON 1542 ROYAL PICTURE GALLERY, MAURITSHUIS, THE HAGUE ] [Sidenote: UNDATED PORTRAITS OF LAST YEARS]