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| Lucas Cranach the Elder Portrait of Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous 1509 oil on panel National Gallery, London |
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| Lucas Cranach the Elder Portrait of Johann the Steadfast 1509 oil on panel National Gallery, London |
The pair of portraits above by Lucas Cranach the Elder represent two Electors of Saxony – father and son – both active as militant Protestants during the early decades of the Reformation. Their images are preserved in one frame arranged as a diptych at the National Gallery in London.
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| Hans Baldung Portrait of a man 1514 oil on panel National Gallery, London |
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| Michel Sittow Portrait of Diego de Guevara ca. 1515-18 oil on panel National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
From January to May 2018 the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC will mount a retrospective exhibition – Michel Sittow: Estonian Painter at the Courts of Renaissance Europe. "Undoubtedly the greatest Renaissance artist from Estonia, Michel Sittow (c. 1469-1525) was born in Reval (now Tallinn in present-day Estonia), likely studied in Bruges with Hans Memling, and worked at the courts of renowned European royals such as King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castille. Through some 20 works, representing most of Sittow's small oeuvre, the exhibition will offer an opportunity to examine his art in a broader context, including a possible collaboration with Juan de Flandes and Sittow's relationship with his Netherlandish contemporaries."
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| Jan Gossaert Portrait of Hendrik III, Count of Nassau-Breda ca. 1516-17 oil on panel Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas |
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| Jan Gossaert Portrait of a merchant ca. 1530 oil on panel National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| Jan Gossaert Portrait of Francisco de los Cobos y Molina ca. 1530-32 oil on panel Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| Jan Gossaert Portrait of a man before 1532 oil on panel Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen |
"Jan Gossaert's fame in his own time was due not only to his innovative images, but also to the fact that he advertised his achievements by signing so many of his works from the outset of his career. The significant number of signed and dated works also helps to reconstruct the artist's stylistic development from his earliest days in Antwerp to his final years of production. Most of Gossaert's paintings are single panels, and nearly half are portraits, a genre in which he particularly excelled. It is clear that he was sought after for his extraordinary abilities to represent the lifelike appearance of individuals. Curiously, among the portraits that have survived, only a few depict women, the overwhelming number representing men of the courtly realm and upper levels of society."
– from the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History produced by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York
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| Bernard van Orley Portrait of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor 1519-20 oil on panel Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest |
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| Albrecht Dürer Portrait of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor 1519 oil on panel Kunsthistorisches Museum,Vienna |
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| Albrecht Dürer Portrait of Jakob Muffel 1526 oil on canvas Gemäldegalerie, Berlin |
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| Barthel Beham Portrait of a woman 1529 oil on panel Denver Art Museum |
"Barthel Beham probably learned from his elder brother Hans Sebald Beham and from Albrecht Dürer. During the 1520s Beham was especially active as an engraver, creating tiny technical masterpieces of marvelous detail. He also was interested in antiquity and at some point in his career may have worked with Marcantonio Raimondi in Bologna and Rome. In 1525, along with the other "godless painters" Hans Sebald Beham and Georg Pencz, Barthel was banished from Lutheran Nuremberg for asserting that he did not believe in baptism, Christ, or transubstantiation. Although soon pardoned, Barthel moved to Catholic Munich to work for the Bavarian dukes William IV and Ludwig X. There his outstanding skill distinguished him as one of Germany's principal portrait painters, sought out by such luminaries as Emperor Charles V. His portrayals were coolly objective, with a strong sense of three-dimensionality."
– from curator's notes at the Getty Museum
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| Hans Holbein Portrait of Jane Seymour as Queen of England 1536 oil on panel Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
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| Corneille de Lyon Portrait of Mary of Guise, consort of James V of Scotland, mother of Mary Queen of Scots ca. 1537 oil on panel National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh |