Portrait of Elsbeth Lochmann, wife of Jacob Schwytzer

This is one half of a marriage. Elsbeth Lochmann was painted as the companion piece to her husband Jacob Schwytzer, the two panels made to hang together in 1564 and matched in size at nearly two metres tall. Full-length, life-size portraits of a private woman were still uncommon then, a display reserved for wealth and rank, and the Schwytzers had both in Zurich. Stimmer gives her the same upright, standing presence he gave her husband, so the two carry equal weight on the wall. Both panels have stayed together for more than four centuries and hang today in the Kunstmuseum in Basel.