Yesterday I decided I’d try to start backtracking some images of my NRW files that have been listed as unknown. Where they have arms there is a chance that I can work backwards from approximate date of artwork. If the sitter is a woman her arms are that of her father and mother and not that of her husband. So I can sometimes find the sitter through her parents and if she has a daughter I can have a bit more luck as usually portraits of all kinds at this time separate by gender.

One of my query images might have been flipped, but also I think there is a panel missing. I think I know who the central figure is as he did not marry nor had children and is depicted in eccelesiastic dress, the remaining panel shows two women each wearing gowns entirely made of gold. That marks them as being very high in the ranks of nobility, I had thought princesses but they seem to be of a countess and her daughter.

It was sold at auction, the family name understood but I think I may have identified the sitters- it’s a matter of asking why it looks a bit different. But it may mean being able to hunt down the other panel at another auction.

The other two images are from stained glass windows and one of them has been restored just in Dec last year! One of the windows included the names of the sitters, but the other look a bit of searching to find a list of the paintings from the cathedral and tiny images of the full size so that I could just compare general shapes.

So that is three more figures I can add to show the difference between the very wealthy citizens of Cologne vs the nobility in the North Rhine.

Westphalia gets very interesting and very complicated very quickly. I have really just myself around the whole K-J-B duchies and how they came together. It means I can go back through each Duchy and maybe find siblings and spouses and children not in the direct line. And find depictions.

So.

A bit of work still but I’m enjoying this folder again.