Portrait of Hans VI Imhoff (1488-1526), half-length, in a fur-lined cloak

This refined portrait represents Hans VI Imhoff (1488-1526), a member of one of the most prominent patrician families of 16^th century Nuremberg. The identification is possible thanks to a later portrait, datable to circa 1627⁄28, which is incorporated along with other ancestral portraits into the epitaph of Hans VII Imhoff, the sitter’s grandson, in the Rochuskapelle, Nuremberg (see K. Pilz, St Johannis and St Rochus in Nürnberg, Nuremberg, 1984, pp. 165-166). A nearly identical likeness of Hans VI appears in the upper left corner of the monument, where he is shown facing the opposite direction with his hands cropped out of the composition and wears a doublet in addition to the clothes seen here. In the Nuremberg epitaph, Hans VI appears across from his wife, Felicitas Pirckheimer (1497-1530), the daughter of the jurist and humanist, Willibald Pirckheimer (1470-1530), the famed friend of Erasmus and Dürer. Their son was the great art collector Willibald Imhoff (1519-1580), who inherited much of Willibald Pirckheimer’s library and art collection and in 1560 acquired Dürer’s estate.

The portrait of Hans VI from the Imhoff epitaph bears the inscription `HANS IM HOFF AE 23’, indicating that it represents Hans at the age of 23. Working from the sitter’s birth year of 1488 (see P. Fleischmann, Rat und Patriziat in Nürnberg, Neustadt an der Aisch, 2008, p. 610), it seems likely that that the present likeness was captured in 1511, four years before his marriage to Felicitas.

We are grateful to Dr. Joshua P. Waterman for identifying the sitter of this portrait and for providing additional information relating to this lot.