Portrait of Johannes Oporinus

By the date painted on this panel, September 1567, Johannes Oporinus was still alive: the Basel printer nearly 60 who had spent his life turning scholars' manuscripts into books. Oporinus died the following year, and Hans Bock, to whom the portrait is traditionally given, was not yet working in Basel in 1567. So the likeness was almost certainly painted in the 1580s, after the sitter's death, and that inscribed date has kept his authorship in question ever since. Bock built the face closely against a dark ground and set beside the printer his own mark, Arion riding a dolphin, playing as the waves carry him across the sea.