English: A bust length portrait facing three-quarters to the left. Black, white, and coloured chalks, with traces of silverpoint.
William Warham (1450–1532) had been Archbishop of Canterbury for 22 years when Holbein arrived in England for the first time in 1526 in search of work. Holbein came armed with a recommendation from Desiderius Erasmus, the great humanist scholar, who had sent a portrait of himself by Holbein to Warham. Warham was part of an English humanist circle that corresponded with Erasmus and included Sir Thomas More, Holbein's host in England. The oil portrait that resulted from this preliminary study is now in the Louvre, Paris. Like the drawing, it presents an "unsparing study of old age" (Foister, 25). In the view of art historian K. T. Parker, "The drawing is unequalled for its penetrating characterisation" (Parker, 38). It is much rubbed and tampered with, and has been reworked in places and reinforced along the outlines.