According to art historian Susan Forster, the drawing contains passages of fine as well as of inferior work, for example in the confused drawing of the body. In Foister's view, "the drawing may in part be the work of an assistant completing what Holbein had begun, which was perhaps not much more than the face" (Foister, p. 115). Fellow art historian John Rowlands judged the whole drawing to be by Holbein: "Despite disfigurements caused by rubbing, especially of the sitter's fur coat, and the crease across the middle of the sheet, the quality of execution of the facial features is quite consistent with Holbein's portraiture of the mid-1530s. The delicate use of white heightening and the precise outlines of the eyebrows, eyes, nose and mouth all point inevitably to the conclusion that the drawing is the work of Holbein himself and not that of a follower" (Rowlands, p. 234).

References

• Susan Foister, Holbein in England, London: Tate, 2006, ISBN 1854376454.
• John Rowlands, The Age of Dürer and Holbein: German Drawings, 1400–1550, London: British Museum, 1988, ISBN 0714116394.