Hermann von Wedigh III (died 1560)

Hans Holbein the Younger

A young man rests his arm on a table. A book lies before him, a piece of paper tucked into its pages. From these simple ingredients, Holbein composed one of his most celebrated—and best preserved—portraits. The sitter came from a prominent family in Cologne, Germany, and served as a judge and alderman of the city’s assembly. The paper in his book quotes the Roman playwright Terence’s assertion that "flattery produces friends, truth hatred." Juxtaposing various kinds of text—the handwritten fragment, the gold-lettered inscription in the background, and the sitter’s name in an illusionistic inscription on the book—Holbein combines word and image to convey his subject’s identity.