A portrait drawing of Thomas, 2nd Baron Vaux (1509-1556) on pink prepared paper. He is shown bust length facing three-quarters to the right. The drawing is in black and coloured chalks, worked up in black ink and white heightening. The sheet of paper has been cut to an irregular shape at some point between 1720 and the mid-eighteenth century.

The drawing is inscribed with colour and textile notes in Holbein's hand: silbe (silver, twice), rot (red), w. sam (for weiss sammet, white velvet)? Gl (gold)…karmin (…carmine).  An eighteenth-century inscription (a copy of a mid-sixteenth-century original) at top left identified the sitter before it was largely trimmed away.

Thomas Vaux, 2nd Baron Vaux, was a well-connected courtier bron into great wealth drawn from estates and sheep farming in Nortamptonshire. He withdrew from court and politics in 1536, apparently unable to reconcile his beliefs with Henry VIII's move to take control of the Church in England. He is associated with a handful of verses, all published posthumously. Another portrait drawing of Lord Vaux by Holbein is in the Royal Collection (RCIN 912246).