<i>Portrait drawing of Bonifacius Amerbach</i>.
The academic Bonifacius (or Boniface) Amerbach (1495–1562), a printer's son, became a friend and admirer of Holbein, as both men mixed in humanist circles in Basel. Amerbach taught Roman law at Basel University and was also a friend of the great humanist scholar <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desiderius_Erasmus" class="extiw" title="w:Desiderius Erasmus">Desiderius Erasmus</a>, who made him his sole heir. He became a collector of Holbein's art, and his collection, expanded by his son Basilius, formed the core of Basel's art museum. The fact that Basilius did not specially mention this drawing in his inventory led to misidentifications of the sitter, but recent scholarship has established that he is almost certainly Bonifacius Amerbach (Müller, p. 331). Holbein had previously painted a <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Portrait_of_Boniface_Amerbach,_by_Hans_Holbein_the_Younger.jpg" title="File:Portrait of Boniface Amerbach, by Hans Holbein the Younger.jpg">portrait of Amerbach</a> in 1519.
<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>
</bdi>
circa 1525 <div style="display: none;">date QS:P571,+1525-00-00T00:00:00Z/9,P1480,Q5727902</div>
Christian Müller; Stephan Kemperdick; Maryan Ainsworth; <i>et al</i>, <i>Hans Holbein the Younger: The Basel Years, 1515–1532,</i> Munich: Prestel, 2006, <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9783791335803" title="Special:BookSources/9783791335803">ISBN 9783791335803</a>.