<i>Design for Anthony Denny's Clocksalt.</i> Pen and black ink on paper with grey wash and red wash on the compass, 41 × 21.3 cm, British Museum, London.
<p>Holbein designed this clocksalt—a combination of a clock, hourglass, sundial, and compass—for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Denny" class="extiw" title="w:Anthony Denny">Anthony Denny</a>, whose portrait he had drawn two years earlier. Denny was a rising figure in the royal court and went on to control the dry stamp of Henry VIII's signature at the end of the reign and play a key role in the regency council during the reign of Edward VI. Denny seems to have been a personal friend of Holbein: he lived in the same neighbourhood and lent him money, which Holbein paid back in the terms of his will. Holbein died in 1543, the same year he designed this clocksalt.
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A note on the drawing shows that Denny presented a clock made from this design to King Henry, who owned a number of clocks and clocksalts, as a New year's gift. It would have been an expensive item, made of precious metals. Holbein had often designed for goldsmiths since his training in Augsburg, a centre of the goldsmiths' trade. Two of the notes on the sketch are in the hand of Holbein's friend the royal astronomer <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Kratzer" class="extiw" title="w:Nicholas Kratzer">Nicholas Kratzer</a>, who probably assisted in the technical design of the piece. (Foister, p. 77.)
<bdi><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:Hans_Holbein_the_Younger" class="extiw" title="w:en:Hans Holbein the Younger"><span title="German artist and printmaker (1497-1543)">Hans Holbein the Younger</span></a>
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1543
Susan Foister, <i>Holbein in England</i>, London: Tate, 2006, <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/1854376454" title="Special:BookSources/1854376454">ISBN 1854376454</a>, p. 76.