I’ve recently become interested in his work, particularly his portraits, having seen a documentary about him. This showed some of the preparatory drawings (held in the Queen’s collection at Windsor Castle) which he had made while in the court of Henry VIII. Some of these drawings are very beautiful even if it’s not possible to tell how much of a likeness he had been able to capture.

I found that the biggest collection of his finished work was in the Kunstmuseum in Basel. I was planning a visit to Switzerland to visit my sister Pamela in April 2014 and so made another plan to go to see Holbein’s work. He and his brother went to Basel when he was 17, I went when I was 65. I’ve only just worked out that he died when he was c. 46. A young man. The Ambassadors was the work that I’d seen most in lectures over the years but the work that had never been a favourite. Many of the drawings in Windsor are delicate and show

the sensitivity and skill of the artist. I hope to visit Windsor Castle to see them. My visit to Basel’s Kunstmuseum was a terrific experience. I walked the corridors and found Holbein’s work. Most of the pieces were as wonderful as I had hoped. I particularly liked a small work depicting Erasmus painted in 1532.