Holbein was one of the most versatile German artists to emerge after Dürer's maturity (attained ca. 1500). Active as a painter and draftsman, he also produced designs for prints, metalwork, stained glass, and jewelry. This sheet—the first work on paper by Holbein the Younger to enter the Museum's collections—belongs to a series of drawings of the apostles in the same size, medium, and technique. In all likelihood they were meant as independent, finished works. Several, like Saint Thomas, are dated 1527 and thus originate from Holbein's first English period, where they form an isolated but striking example of religious work made at that point in the artist's career.