Martin Kober

Martin Kober (also Köber or Koebner; poln Marcin Kober ) (* 1550 in Breslau, † before 1609) was a Silesian painter of the Mannerist and early Baroque, who achieved notoriety in the Polish royal court as a portrait painter.

Life and work

After the end of his apprenticeship, he spent last in Magdeburg, Kober 1583 went to Poland, where he found employment at the royal court to Krakow and climb even as court painter King Stephen Báthorys.

In the first year of his tenure there, he created a portrait of his patron King Stephen Báthory. Although this was his first work for the Polish king, but it is considered his magnum opus and is already showing the typical style Kober: The naturalistic, unembellished depiction of his sitters, as well as the play of the hands, which dissolves the static body.

Even in the aftermath Kober was to work as a portrait painter. After the death Báthorys 1586 Kober returned to his home town of Breslau, came to pass because of guild disputes but soon after Prague. At the court of Emperor Rudolf II, he took the ideas of Mannerist, 1587 was exempt from compulsory guild and was able to work freely there. But in 1590 he returned to Cracow, where he again court painter, this time by King Sigismund III. Wasa was. Except for his brief work on archducal farm to Graz, he worked until his death as a court painter in Krakow.

Martin Kober, whose work can be seen in the light of the Silesian or German influences his apprenticeship, was the first portrait painter of Poland and established the genre in Polish painting. He was also an important representative of the early Baroque. His painting style was in the aftermath many imitators.

Selection of his works

  • Portrait of King Stephen Báthory ( Krakow, Museum of missionaries ), 1583
  • Portrait of Sigismund III. Wasa ( Vienna, Paintings Gallery Museum of Art History ), 1591
  • Portrait of Queen Anne Jagiellonica in widow's weeds ( Krakow, Staatl. Art collections on the Wawel Hill ), 1595
  • Portrait of Queen Anne Jagiellonica in widow's weeds ( variant of the above ) (Warsaw, Royal Castle ), 1595
  • Portrait of Queen Anne of Austria, (Munich, Bavarian State Painting Collections )
Wrocław Mannerism Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor Anna Jagiellon
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