Ulrich Fugger (1490–1525)

Hans Maler zu Schwaz painted this portrait of Ulrich Fugger the Younger around 1526, depicting a member of the immensely powerful Fugger banking dynasty that financed Habsburg emperors and popes alike. The Fuggers were among Maler zu Schwaz's most important patrons—the banking family's headquarters in Augsburg and their Tyrolean mining interests brought them into contact with Schwaz, where silver mining made the town briefly one of Europe's most prosperous. Maler's portraits of Fugger family members show the dignity and assurance of the period's greatest financial power, the sitters' careful dress and composed bearing asserting the social authority of commercial wealth. Ulrich Fugger the Younger participated in the family's transition from active commerce toward aristocratic land ownership.

The portrait shows Maler's precise Tyrolean technique with careful rendering of the sitter's costume and features, projecting the dignified authority appropriate to the Fugger banking dynasty.