Adoption of Habsburg Portrait Models for Aristocratic Likenesses in the Czech Lands in the Reign of Ferdinand I

Abstract

In the reign of Ferdinand I of Habsburg, important examples of portrait painting were done in the Lands of the Bohemian Crown. Though few examples of Renaissance portraiture of that period have survived, there are some noteworthy portraits dating from 1526–1564. The paper focuses on the reception of the so-called Habsburg portrait type in portrait painting in Bohemia and Moravia and examines the purpose for which the commissioners used it. Two specific approaches will be illustrated on the portrait cycle of Adam I of Hradec and his family, painted by Jacob Seisenegger and dated 1529, and portraits of William of Rosenberg, his brother and sisters, commissioned between 1552 and 1554. In both cases, the commissioners were persons of the highest rank in Bohemian aristocratic society.