A portrait drawing of Princess Mary (1516-1558) on pink prepared paper. She is shown half length, facing three quarters to the left, wearing a necklace and pendant. The drawing is greatly rubbed and much of the chalk detail in her face has been lost. The outlines of her features have been reinforced in black ink. No painting or miniature after this drawing is known.

An eighteenth-century inscription (a copy of a mid-sixteenth-century original) at top left identifies the sitter as 'The Lady Mary after Queen'.

Princess Mary was the daughter of Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon. She was declared illegitimate by the 1534 Act of Succession, but returned to her father's favour after the execution of Anne Boleyn and was godmother to her half brother Prince Edward. Her father's will restored her to her place in the succession after Edward. From her brother's accession, Mary, who remained a Catholic, became the focus for opposition to reform. Despite attempts to prevent her accession, she was proclaimed queen as Mary I after Edward's death in 1553, and ruled until her death in 1558. This drawing must date from after her return to favour in 1537.