Eitel Hans I. Besserer von Schnürpflingen

Martin Schaffner painted this Portrait of Eitel Hans I. Besserer von Schnürpflingen around 1519, another portrait commission from the prominent Ulm patrician family that was one of his most consistent sources of patronage. The Besserer family were leading members of Ulm's civic elite, and multiple generations commissioned portraits from Schaffner's workshop that documented their social position and individual identities across the early sixteenth century. Schaffner's ability to produce convincing likenesses with the dignified bearing appropriate to patrician status made him the natural choice for Ulm's most prominent families. His portrait style combines physiognomic precision with the formal composure expected of civic portraiture, each sitter given their specific individual character within the stable compositional conventions that ensured their portraits read as images of social dignity.

The portrait captures the patrician sitter with the precise, descriptive technique characteristic of Schaffner's Swabian style. The careful rendering of costume and the direct characterization convey the sitter's social prominence.