Erasmus himself sat to Holbein, and sent the finished portrait as a present to his friend Sir Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England.
In England, owing to the effects of the Wars of the Roses, good painters no longer existed.

A century of neglect had destroyed English painting.
Henry VIII., therefore, had to look to foreign lands for his court painter, and where was he to come from?
France was the nearest country, but the French King was in the same predicament as Henry.

He obtained his painters from Italy, and at one time secured the services of Leonardo da Vinci; but Italy was a long way off and it would suit Henry better to get a painter from Flanders or Germany if it were possible.
So Erasmus advised Holbein to go to England, and gave him a letter to Sir Thomas More.

On this first visit in 1526, he painted the portraits of More and his whole family, and of many other distinguished men; but it was not till his second visit in 1532 that he became Henry VIII.'s court painter.

In this capacity he had to decorate the walls of the King's palaces, design the pageantry of the Royal processions, and paint the portraits of the King's family.