This self-portrait survives as a miniature, a format Holbein had begun to use only in the last decade of his career, from around 1534 onward^[1]. Painting small, exact likenesses on this scale was a late addition to a body of work built mainly from full-size panels and large preparatory drawings. Made in 1543, the self-portrait falls at the very end of that output, among the last images Holbein is known to have produced before his death later that year^[1].

Holbein made his will on 7 October 1543, providing for the payment of his debts, including ten pounds, thirteen shillings and sevenpence owed to Mr Anthony, one of the king's servants at Greenwich, and six pounds owed to the goldsmith Hans of Antwerp^[1]. He allocated seven shillings and sixpence every month for the keeping of his two children in England and their nurse^[1]. The will was witnessed by the armourer Anthoney Snecher, by Hans of Antwerp himself, by the merchant Olrycke Obynger, and by a painter named Harry Maynert, of whom nothing else is known^[1]. Holbein died sometime between 7 October and 29 November 1543, almost certainly of plague, and the will was formally executed on 29 November before Master John Croke, Commissionary-General, with Hans of Antwerp acting as executor^[1].

Holbein first arrived in London in the autumn of 1526, carrying a letter of introduction from Erasmus and hoping to find work among the city's humanists and merchants^[2]. He returned briefly to Basel in 1528 and again in 1538, but from 1532 he settled in England for good, eventually becoming King's Painter to Henry VIII^[2]. No single surviving document sets out exactly what his court salary of thirty pounds a year was meant to cover, but the role evidently included designing precious metalwork, jewellery and daggers for the king alongside painting portraits of Henry, his family, and a succession of prospective royal brides^[1].