Short answers, pulled from the story.
Hans Holbein the Younger, a German-Swiss artist working at the English court, painted the Portrait of Thomas Cromwell. It is usually dated to between 1532 and 1534 and is one of only two portraits Holbein made of Cromwell, the other being a round medallion in a series of Tudor courtier portraits.
The Portrait of Thomas Cromwell is usually dated to between 1532 and 1534, when Cromwell was around 48 years old and serving as chief minister to Henry VIII, a role he held from 1532 to 1540.
The original panel does not survive. Historians believe it was destroyed or sold soon after Cromwell's execution by beheading on the 28th of July 1540 in the Tower of London, since no later royal inventory records it.
Three copies survive: one in the Frick Collection in New York, one in the National Portrait Gallery in London dated to the early seventeenth century, and one in the Chichester Constable collection in Yorkshire. The Frick version is considered the best preserved and generally superior in quality.
Cromwell fell after advising Henry VIII to marry Anne of Cleves in hopes of strengthening a political alliance with the Protestant cause in Germany. The unpopular marriage gave his many enemies the chance to bring charges of treason, leading to his arrest and beheading.
Cromwell is shown seated before a table draped in green cloth, holding a legal document. The table also holds a quill, a devotional book (his Book of Hours), a pair of scissors, and a leather bag, and Cromwell wears a black fur lined overcoat with a patterned gold ring set with a large green gemstone.