Artist: Hans Holbein the Younger, German, 1497/98-1543, Portrait of a HanseaticMerchant, Oil on panel, unframed: 49.6 × 39 cm (19 1/2 × 15 3/8 in.), The merchants of the Hanseatic League, a powerful German trading organization that rapidly expanded into other countries along the Baltic and North seas, established their English headquarters in the London Steelyard. Holbein was commissioned to decorate their meeting hall and to produce individual portraits of the guild members. These all adopt the same format, with the sitter represented frontally against an unadorned background. An inscription records the age of the sitter in this painting (thirty-three), but no other information is known abouthim., Swiss, 16thcentury, Paintings