Portrait of Bonifacius Amerbach

In the autumn of 1519 Bonifacius Amerbach was 24 and about to leave Basel for Avignon to study law. Travel was risky enough that he wanted a likeness of himself left at home in case he never came back. The Latin verse on the tablet beside him is his own, and he tried its opening words some 20 times on a sheet of paper before settling on them. In the finished lines the painted face claims to be the equal of the living one. The date written there, 14 October 1519, was his birthday. Holbein had just joined the Basel painters' guild, which is what entitled him to sign a picture with his full name. Amerbach came back, taught law in Basel and later inherited the library of the humanist Erasmus. In 1661 the city and the university bought the family collection, this small panel included, for 9,000 reichsthaler, and opened it to the public ten years later.