Lot 112: Portrait of a Martin Klostermair (b. 1502), aged 60, half-length, in a brown coat and black hat, holding a book

Attributed to Hans Mielich (Munich 1516-1573) Portrait of a Martin Klostermair (b. 1502), aged 60, half-length, in a brown coat and black hat, holding a book signed and dated 'Ao M D LXI / HM' ('HM' linked, upper left), inscribed 'SIC OCVLOS DOCTOR MEDICo, / SIC ORA FEREBAM / VT PICTA HEC GRAPHICA / MONSTRAT IMAGO / MANV, / MK D AETATIS / Ao LX.' (upper right), inscribed 'APHORISMI. / HIPPOCRATIS' (lower centre, on the book) and with the sitter's coat-of-arms (upper right) oil on panel, unframed 19½ x 15 7/8 in. (49.5 x 41.6 cm.)

49.5 x 41.6 cm.

K. Löcher, Hans Mielich 1516-1573. Bildnismaler in München, Munich, 2002, p. 86, no. 60, fig. 60, as 'South German[?], attributed to Hans Mielich'. K. Löcher, 'Der Maler Hans Mielich, seine Bedeutung für die Malerei der Renaissance in Bayern', in Das Kleinodienbuch der Herzogin Anna von Bayern. Handschrift Cod. icon. 429 der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek München. Kommentar, Berlin, 2008, p. 89.

Born in 1502, Martin Klostermair studied medicine at the University of Ingolstadt between 1528 and 1530, which had been founded by Louis the Rich, Duke of Bavaria, in 1472. He is recorded in Munich from 1547 until 1561 as one of three personal physicians during the reigns of William IV and Albert V, Dukes of Bavaria. Klostermair seems to have been in close contact with the humanists of his time and well-versed in Latin; in 1576 he published his Chronographia partialis and Arithmologia about the founding of Munich and other events of Bavarian history. The inscription underlines the faithful representation of the sitter’s physiognomy. It reads ‘Such are the eyes of the physician, such does the mouth appear, as here the artist shows, by his hand, the medicus aged 60’.