Portrait of a Man

Martin Schaffner's Portrait of a Man from around 1525 shows this Ulm painter working in the manner developed from Dürer's influence on South German painting, combining precise facial observation with the decorative richness of German Renaissance portraiture. Schaffner was among the most significant painters working in Ulm in the early sixteenth century, a city known for its prosperous merchant class that provided steady portrait commissions. His sitters are typically wealthy citizens depicted with their specific physiognomies rendered honestly while the accessories of dress and occasionally held objects signal social status. The painting demonstrates how thoroughly Dürer's revolution in German portraiture — moving from the Gothic emphasis on silhouette to the Renaissance interest in three-dimensional facial modeling — had spread through South German painting by the 1520s.

The oil on parchment mounted on panel is an unusual support choice that allows for exceptional detail. Schaffner's precise technique renders physiognomic features and costume with the linear clarity characteristic of the Ulm school.