King Ludwig II of Hungary as a boy

Strigel painted this portrait of King Ludwig II of Hungary as a boy around 1515 for the Kunsthistorisches Museum. The young king, who would die at the Battle of Mohacs in 1526 at age twenty, was already a figure of dynastic importance in Habsburg succession planning Bernhard Strigel served as court painter to Emperor Maximilian I, making him among the most sought-after portraitists in the Habsburg world during the early sixteenth century Egg tempera on panel was the dominant technique of the pe

The child portrait demonstrates Strigel's careful Swabian technique applied to a young sitter, capturing the boy's features with the documentary precision expected of dynastic court portraiture.