Hans Maler
German, 1521
Oil on panel, 25,3 x 20,9 cm
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Picture Gallery
inv.-no. 831
Hans Maler’s small painting from 1521 is the first portrait of Ferdinand I executed in Austria. Ferdinand had spent his childhood and adolescence in Spain. In 1518, however, he travelled first to Burgundy and in May 1521 on to Austria where he married the Hungarian princess Anna at Linz. This portrait may have been painted as a private gift. An entry in inventory of the collection of Margaret of Austria (Ferdinand’s aunt) compiled in the 1520s describes a similar portrait - probably the painting on show here. Hans Maler worked for the Fuggers and the Habsburgs at Schwarz, the Tyrolean center of mining. He also completed two portraits of Princess Maria and Princess Anna, who had been betrothed in 1515, and were in Innsbruck waiting for their respective weddings. SK