Portrait of a clean-shaven man with a fur hat and fur collar [Recto]

The Portrait of a Clean-Shaven Man with Fur Hat and Fur Collar (1514) at the Kunsthalle Bremen demonstrates Cranach's portrait formula applied to a sitter whose specific identity has not been established — the fur hat and collar indicating prosperity and social standing, the careful physiognomic observation recording an individual whose name has been lost to history. Anonymous portraits are among the most historically interesting in Cranach's output precisely because they remove the biographical narrative that tends to dominate the discussion of his more famous sitters, allowing the painting's formal and technical qualities to receive fuller attention. The Kunsthalle Bremen, a distinguished German art museum founded in 1849, holds this as part of its collection of Old Master painting alongside more modern German works. The fur hat and collar were winter clothing typical of the Saxon prosperous class — the beaver or mink fur indicating substantial means, the distinctive hat style characterizing upper-class German male dress of the early sixteenth century.

The portrait demonstrates Cranach's precise portraiture with careful rendering of the luxurious fur collar and hat, combined with the sharp physiognomic observation characteristic of his work.