Manner of Lorenz Strauch (German, 1599-c. 1630), "The Nobleman Johann Van Der Beeck of Nürnberg", c. 1610, oil on hand-planed thick wood panel, extensively inscribed but apparently unsigned, 25 in. x 20 in., framed.
Note: This Late Renaissance portrait is inscribed by the artist with the sitter's name, and also with his title as Preceptor General of his chivalric Order, represented on the painted shield of arms and in the enameled pendant which the sitter wears on a chain at the bottom of the image. Van Der Beeck is noted as having died on 19 October 1611, but the inscription, giving his age when the portrait was painted, has become indistinct. He is dressed in a very fine black silk suit, with collar and cuffs of white linen; he wears a quite elaborate ring, and holds a rosary beside several books.
Lorenz Strauch was born in Nuremberg, and trained with his father, Hans Strauch (d. 1580); among images of many other prominent patricians of his city he is particularly celebrated for his portrait of the great goldsmith Christoph Jamnitzer (of 1597; Germanische Nationalmuseum). He is reliably said to have painted well over 100 portraits, including a signed and dated Self-Portrait of 1614, in the same museum. These paintings form part of the contemporaneous phenomenon (of c. 1570 to c. 1630) of a strong nationalist revival of interest in the work of Albrecht Dürer (1421-1528), "one of the most striking developments in European Mannerism."
References: Jeffrey Chipps Smith, "Strauch," Grove Dictionary of Art, Jane Turner, ed., 34 vols., London, 1996, vol. 29, p. 762; Matthias Mende, "Durer Renaissance," ibid., vol. 9, pp. 445-447.