A portrait drawing of Sir John Godsalve (c.1505-1556). A half length portrait facing three-quarters to the right. He wears a fur collar, black gown, blue sleeves and is holding a letter. Inscribed in an eighteenth-century hand at upper left and to the left of the ear: Sr Iohn Godsalue. S John Godsalue.

John Godsalve was first portrayed by Holbein in 1528 alongside his father Sir Thomas Godsalve, a public notary (Dresden, Gemäldegalerie).The date of this later drawn portrait is not known, but may date from the end of Holbein's career: it remains unfinished, and probably like the majority of the Holbein drawings at Windsor was still in the artist's possession at his death. Unlike the other drawings, however, it was clearly always intended to be coloured, and probably treated as a finished work of art rather than a preparatory drawing. 

In the Philadelphia Museum of Art is another half-length painting of Godsalve, at about the same age, wearing similar clothes and the same cap and also holding a folded letter, but the painting does not depend compositionally on the present drawing in any detail; nor is it by Holbein, and its relationship to the present drawing remains problematic.