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Portrait of Fridrich Rorbach

Conrad Faber (German, c. 1500–by 1553)

1532

Medium: Oil on panel
Classification: Painting
Dimensions: 50.4 × 35.7 cm (19 7/8 × 14 1/16 in.); Framed: 68.3 × 53.5 cm (26 7/8 × 21 1/16 in.)
Culture: Germany
Museum: Art Institute of Chicago, Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Credit line: Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection
Rights: Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed

About this work

This portrait would have served as a document of a marriage. Friedrich Rorbach’s name, age, and coat of arms, along with the date, are painted on the back of the panel, which was originally paired with a portrait of his wife, Katherina Knoblauchin, now in the National Gallery of Ireland. The two portraits share the same background— a fanciful mountain landscape. Conrad Faber, who worked in Frankfurt-am-Main, specialized in portraits depicting the patrician elite of that prosperous city. In the early 16th century, the energy and self-confidence of the many courts and free cities loosely united in the Holy Roman Empire brought about an artistic flowering in Germany.