Gerhard von Westerburg (1486–after 1539), Half-Length, in a Fur-Trimmed Mantle and Black Hat

Gerhard von Westerburg (1486 – after 1539) was a Cologne nobleman who appears in documents related to the city's political life in the early 16th century. Bruyn painted numerous portraits of Cologne's patrician class, and Westerburg's half-length likeness in fur-trimmed mantle belongs to the emerging standard of three-quarter portrait that was replacing the older Flemish profile type across Germany in the 1520s and 1530s. The specific description in the title — half-length, fur-trimmed mantle, black hat — signals that this is a work of careful documentation, preserving the sitter's distinctive dress alongside his features, which is consistent with the practical function of such portraits for family commemoration.

Bruyn's male portrait technique shows the Cologne synthesis of Netherlandish and German approaches: careful underdrawing establishing the physiognomic specifics of the sitter, then paint building the face through close-valued tones, with the black hat and fur collar providing compositional anchors against which the flesh tones register clearly.