This portrait of a young man, who was twenty-four in 1543 (and therefore born circa 1519), was looted from the Danzig Museum (now the Gdańsk National Museum) by the German occupation forces in 1943, then claimed by the Soviet Union’s Red Army as spoils of war in 1945. The sitter was formerly thought to be a merchant of the Steelyard (Stalhof) in London. In 1913 Georg Habich identified the sitter as Heinrich von Schwarzwald, but Heinrich’s birth date of 8 July 1517 rules him out as the sitter, and in any case his merchant’s mark does not correspond to the "Z or very widely placed N" on the sitter's signet ring. A different claim was made at the same time by Hans Secker, who said that by tradition, the sitter was known as Hans (Johann) von Schwarzwaldt (1513-1575), but he too can be ruled out. The portrait, one of a number of works of art subject to restitution requests by the Polish government, is located at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow. An earlier portrait of the same individual is located in the Royal Collections, The Hague: MI-492 where he is identified as Hans Schwarzwaldt (1513-1575). In 2016 the young man was identified as Gregory Cromwell (c.1520–1551), son of Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, chief minister to Henry VIII.

References

• Buck, Stephanie; Sander, Jochen (2003). Hans Holbein the Younger, 1497/98-1543: Portraitist of the Renaissance. Catalogue for the exhibition, Hans Holbein 1497/98-1543, 16 August–16 November 2003. Essays, Stephanie Buck, Jochen Sander; catalogue, Ariane van Suchtelen, Quentin Buvelot, Peter van der Ploeg; with appendices by Bieke van der Mark and Epco Runia. The Hague: Royal Cabinet of Paintings Mauritshuis. ISBN 904008906X, cat. 35, p. 138, ill., 1 pl. (col.): "On the basis of the similarity of facial features and in particular the characteristic angle of the cropped hair, it could even be conjectured that the two portraits depict the same person."
• Chamberlain, A. B. (1913) Hans Holbein the Younger. Vol. 2, pp. 229–230: Notes that the sitter's features "appear more English than German, and that it most probably represents the son of some personage about Henry's court."
• Fitzgerald, T. and MacCulloch, D. (2016) ‘Gregory Cromwell: Two Portrait Miniatures by Hans Holbein the Younger’, The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 67(3), pp. 587–601. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022046915003322: "In fact the Z or N detail on the signet ring can be accounted for by Gregory Cromwell’s heraldry, if it is seen as a zig-zag, or in heraldic terms, a fess indented."
• Habich, G. (1913) ‘Ein Miniature Bildnis von Hans Holbein in Danzig’, Zeitschrift für Bildende Kunst (n.f., xxiv), pp. 194-196, plate 1.
• Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, The Division for Looted Art: ref. 29081