The Head of John the Baptist on a Platter

Unknown artist

“The Head of John the Baptist on a Platter” was considered by Johannes Mikkel to be a drawing by the remarkable renaissance painter Hans Holbein the Younger (ca 1497–1543). Holbein was first and foremost known as a portrait painter; only a few of his religious works have survived, because most of them were destroyed by iconoclasts during a campaign in Basel. Thus it is difficult to link the motif of the drawing to the creative legacy of Holbein. The rather mediocre drawing and the bad quality of rag paper eliminate Holbein as the author of the work.