English: Black and coloured chalks, pen and ink, and brush and ink on pale pink prepared paper. A bust length portrait facing three-quarters to the left. She wears an embroidered collar, necklace and a medallion. Annotated by the artist: rot (red) and Damast (damask). A bust length portrait facing three-quarters to the left. She wears an embroidered collar, necklace and a medallion.
The drawing is rubbed and stained, but the reinforced lines are of good quality (Parker, p. 51). The inscription — added later and not necessarily reliable — identifies the sitter as Katherine Willoughby, Duchess of Suffolk and 12th Baroness Willoughby de Eresby in her own right. After her father's death, she became the ward of Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk, whom she married as his fourth wife in 1534, perhaps around the time of this drawing. Holbein painted miniature portraits of the couple's two sons Henry and Charles, who in 1551 were to die within hours of each other of the sweating sickness. Widowed in 1545, the duchess married Richard Bertie of Berested in about 1553. As a Protestant, she went into exile with her husband during the reign of Queen Mary, returning on the accession of Queen Elizabeth I in 1558.