Christoph Wilhelmi

Bartolomeo Veneto, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Hans Holbein the Younger, Cariani, and Carpaccio - they all painted portraits. But who are the individuals depicted in these images? Christoph Wilhelmi focuses on scholars and literati, nobility, and Jewish citizens around 1500, and presents compelling proposals for their identification. This results in an engaging cultural history reader. When an unidentified painting by an Old Master is discovered today, efforts are made to attribute it to a known artist. But what happens in the reverse case? The artists of the portraits are known, yet nothing is known about the subjects. The labels on the museum walls only provide vague descriptions such as Portrait of a Young Man or, in the case of Lucas Cranach, Mayor of Weissenfels. The portraits, originally painted for representation, have thus been stripped of their essence - their authentic identity. For centuries, they remained anonymous - the 25 portraits gathered in 23 contributions. Christoph Wilhelmi has now thoroughly examined the biographies and lifestyles of those portrayed. Francesco Gonzaga, Friedrich of the Palatinate, Charles de Bourbon, Edward Seymour, among others, are given a new face.