Dürer and Holbein at the Wawel Castle

Born in Nuremberg, he was apprentice to his father, who was a goldsmith. Considered the most outstanding painter of the German Renaissance. His oeuvre is dominated by graphic works – he became famous mainly for his series of prints: The Apocalypse, The Great Passion, The Life of the Virgin and the so-called master engravings: Melancolia, Knight, Death and the Deviland Saint Jerome in His Study. The artist made religious paintings, but his fame came primarily from portraits, in which he was able to render not only the physiognomic features, but also the psychological characteristics of the model – he knew how to ‘paint the soul’. He visited Italy twice and travelled to the Netherlands. He was also involved in art theory and was particularly interested in issues of proportion and perspective.

‘Indeed! He can also conjure up on canvas the unrepresentable, all the passions, the whole human soul radiating from the body, even the speech.’

Erasmus of Rotterdam on the portraits of Albrecht Dürer

Nuremberg, 1526

Oil on canvas, 49.7 × 37.2 cm

Inscription at the top: EFFIGIES • JACOBI • MVFFEL • / AETATIS • SVAE • ANNO • LV • / SALVTIS • VERO • M • D • XXVI • as well as the monogram « AD » and date 1526.

Berlin, Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Gemäldegalerie, inv. no. 557 D. Purchased for the collection of the then Kaiser Friedrich-Museum in Berlin in 1883 at the auction of the collection of the Naryshkin princes.

Photo credits: Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin / André van Linn; Public Domain Mark 1.0.

This work, originally painted on canvas, was transferred to a wooden backing and then back to canvas. It depicts the mayor of Nuremberg, Jakob Muffel (1471–1526), a member of the city council, one of the seven elders (Septemviri). It was created in 1526, when Dürer was painting representations of the four apostles, intended for one of the rooms (Regimentstube) of the Nuremberg Town Hall – one of his most recognisable painting works (now exhibited in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich). In the same year, the painter made an effigy of another member of the Nuremberg city council, Senator Hieronymus Holzschuher. It is possible that both equally sized and similarly framed portraits were created as part of a single commission. They represent the same style: the model is shown in a bust filling the entire picture plane, against a plain background. The painter gave up on the half-figure depiction, usually including the hands. The viewer’s attention is focused on the face, rendered with exceptional realism and psychological depth. Narrow lips and deep-set eyes gazing into the distance, out of the picture frame, give the older man’s physiognomy an expression of thoughtfulness, solemnity and a certain severity.

An outstanding portrait painter, son of the German painter Hans Holbein the Elder. He was born in Augsburg and settled in Basel around 1516. He worked in book illustration and designed stained glass, but his greatest fame came with his portraits, the realism of which inspired admiration and acclaim from his contemporaries, including the French poet Nicolas Bourbon. In 1526 Holbein went to London, where, as a protégé of Erasmus of Rotterdam, he found a supporter in the person of the influential Thomas Morus, and later Archbishop William Warham became his patron. The artist spent the years 1528–1532 back in Basel before returning to London. He became famous as a portraitist of the English elite, painting well-known portraits of King Henry VIII and his wives, as well as Prince Edward of Wales. Unlike Albrecht Dürer, he did not leave a theoretical legacy.

‘My guest, do you want to see a lifelike portrait? Look at this noble work painted by the Holbein’s hand.’

Nicolas Bourbon, 16th century French poet about his portrait painted by Hans Holbein

London, 1533

Oil on oak wood, 42.1 × 32.6 cm

Inscription in the middle: ANNO 1533 / ÆTATIS.SVÆ 39

Berlin, Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Gemäldegalerie, inv. no. 586B.

Purchased for the collection of the then Kaiser Friedrich-Museum in Berlin in 1874 together with the collection of Barthold Suermondt, who bought the painting in the 1860s from the collection of Count Erwin Friedrich Karl von Schönborn-Buchheim in Vienna. 

Photo credits: Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin / Jörg P. Anders; Public Domain Mark 1.0.

The personality of the model is not definitively resolved. On the basis of the coat of arms of the merchant Wedigh family of Cologne (three green leaves between two black beams arranged in the letter V on a silver field) visible on the gold seal ring, it was hypothesised that the painting depicts one of its members, perhaps the brother or cousin of Hermann III von Wedigh (ca 1503–1560), portrayed by Holbein in 1532 (painting kept by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).

In 1532, after a four-year stay in Basel, Holbein returned to London. There he found new clients among the members of Stalhof, an influential organisation of merchants affiliated to the Hanseatic League. We ignore whether the portrait actually depicts a member of the Stalhof. Its dimensions are questionable – the painting is smaller than images of members of this German corporation and it is possible that it was painted for a private commissioner. The style of this portrait is characteristic of Holbein’s late paintings, in which the painter resigned from additional elements, showing the models against a smooth, neutral background. The gloves – a symbol of the high social status of the person portrayed – remained as the only prop. The asymmetrical, expressive face of the model depicted en face strikes with exceptional realism. The left eye, slightly smaller and seemingly squinted, the neatly trimmed chin and the long, slightly drooping moustache and narrow mouth give this physiognomy a particular expression.