Ludger Tom Ring the Younger

The earliest picture we have by Ludger tom Ring the Younger is a self-portrait dated 1547, the year his father died. The father, Ludger tom Ring the Elder, ran the leading painters' workshop in Münster, the Westphalian bishop's city, and the son was trained in it alongside his elder brother Hermann, also a painter. He then spent time in Holland, Flanders and England.

In 1569 he moved east to Braunschweig, became a citizen there a few years later and stayed for the rest of his life. His sitters were the town's merchants and clergy and their wives, often painted as married couples on matching panels. Two of his portraits are now at Wawel Castle in Kraków, one of them a member of the Van Vechelde family of Braunschweig, dated 1571. They are thought to have reached Poland through Sophia Jagiellon, a daughter of the Polish king Sigismund the Old, who had married the Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. Ludger tom Ring died in Braunschweig in May 1584.