Johann Nepomuk Reichsritter von Humbourg

The man resting his cheek on his hand was a surgeon. Johann Nepomuk von Humbourg, born in Strasbourg in 1731, made his career in Vienna, first as a senior surgeon and later as an imperial councillor and court physician. In 1770, when this was painted, he was about 39 and had already published two Latin treatises on surgical cures.

He sits at a small table with one hand on an open book, a quill standing in its inkstand, and wears a brown coat lined with blue velvet, with lace at the cuffs.

His interests reached past surgery. In 1784 Emperor Joseph II opened a foundling home in Vienna, and the following year he published a plan for bringing up orphans and foundlings. The portrait stayed with the Humbourg family until 1965, when the Belvedere bought it.