Michael Wolgemut (Werkstatt), Porträt Hans VI. Tucher, 1481 (Teil eines Diptychons)

Description

The portrait of the Jerusalem pilgrim and Nuremberg Councillor Hans VI Tucher (1428-1491) comes from the workshop of Michael Wolgemut (1434/37-1519), the teacher of Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528). Tucher gained great popularity with his travel report from the Holy Land published in 1482, which he had visited together with his council colleague Sebald Rieter (1426-1488). On the portrait Tucher is looking slightly to the right with a pious gaze out of a frame. His hands laid on his chest, he is holding the "mahelfingerlin", i.e. the wedding ring, set with precious stones in his right hand between his thumb and index finger. The plague formed the left wing of a diptych of the married couple whose counterpart is hanging in Schloss Wilhelmshöhe (Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel) today and shows Tucher's second wife Ursula from the Harsdörffer family in Nuremberg. The wings are matched to each other, each model is shown in three-quarter profile and facing the other. Ursula, in white festive cap and green dress, holding a carnation in her hand. The year of the marriage is not known, but it took place before 1477. There is a discrepancy in the annual details on the portraits: Ursula's bears the date 1478, the year before Tucher's journey to the Holy Land, Tucher's portrait the date 1481, the year after his return. Whether the painting replaced an earlier portrait of him or whether it was created later for some other reason can only be speculated on.