Michael Wolgemut: Portrait of Levinus Memminger (1485)

(Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid, Spain)

A painting by the German artist Michael Wolgemut (1434 – 1519). The man on this piece is Levinus Memminger (..-1493), a Judge and a a member of the Great Council of Nuremberg. Levinus Memminger was married with Katharina Armauer and is identified on the basis of a comparison with a wing of the Saint Catherine Altar in the Lorenzkirche in Nuremberg, commissioned by Memminger after the birth of their second child. Wolgemut shows Memminger sitting in a sort of balcony before a landscape with a castle in the background. On the left side is a tapestry Memminger’s coat-of-arms and the initials of his name (HMH), which also appear in the sky. Painting from 1485.