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Another portrait by Hans Maler, this time of Ulrich Fugger. Ulrich Fugger Hans Maler zu Schwaz 1525 Oil on wood Metropolitan Museum of Art Enlarge

On the back of this painting an inscription reads: "When I was thirty-one years and nine months old, this is the way I was represented." When this portrait of Anton Fugger was painted, the Fuggers were the richest family in Europe. They even had the right to make their own money! Many versions of this portrait were painted, probably one for each of the Fuggers castles, much like we would duplicate a photograph today, Anton Fugger eventually became the head of this wildly successful German family. In 1539 he purchased a castle from the Knights of Rechberg that still stands today in Babenhausen, Germany and houses the Fugger Museum.

Hans Maler produced a number of portraits of members of such wealthy merchants as the Fuggers. The same year that he painted this portrait of Anton Fugger, he also painted a portrait of Ulrich Fugger, now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Hans Maler shows both of these Fuggers from the chest up, turned in three-quarter view, against a light blue sky.

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