Where are the bones of Hans Holbein? I spent lockdown solving art's grisliest mystery

He was a star of the Renaissance, an unflinching painter of death and horror in a time of rampant plague. Yet he ended up in an unmarked grave in London. Or so it has always been believed …

Baking sourdough, binge-watching Normal People or Mrs America, learning origami. People have dealt with lockdown in many ways. Personally, I went looking for the bones of Hans Holbein, the German artist who died almost 500 years ago and was dumped in an unmarked grave in the City of London. Or so it has always been believed.

Emptied out by coronavirus during lockdown, the City was the perfect place for socially distanced, government-mandated walks. And beneath its streets are the bodies of innumerable plague victims. One in particular haunts me. Holbein died in London, almost certainly of plague, in 1543. The long shadow of bubonic plague permeates his art, in its danse macabre of corpses and skeletons. It seemed appropriate to seek out this master of pestilence in a time of pandemic.

Disease was rife in Holbein's time. The average age was 35, so he did well to reach his 40s

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