A Young Man

Michael Wolgemut, the leading painter of Nuremberg before the rise of his pupil Albrecht Dürer, painted this portrait of a young man around 1486. Wolgemut ran the largest and most influential workshop in Nuremberg, producing altarpieces, portraits, and woodcut illustrations, most notably for Hartmann Schedel's Nuremberg Chronicle. His portraits capture the forthright character of Nuremberg's prosperous burghers. This work belongs to the Early Renaissance, the transformative period in European art when painters first applied mathematical perspective, naturalistic figure modeling, and archaeological interest in antiquity to the inherited traditions of medieval devotional painting.

Oil on panel with direct, unidealized characterization in the Franconian portrait tradition. The sitter's features are rendered with the honest observation that characterizes Wolgemut's portraiture.