Portrait of Anna Scheit, née Mem(m)inger

Barthel Beham's Portrait of Anna Scheit is among the Munich-based painter's most sensitively characterized female portraits. Beham, brother of the engraver Hans Sebald Beham, was expelled from Nuremberg in 1525 as one of the 'godless painters' for radical religious views, eventually settling in Munich where he served the Wittelsbach court. His portrait style shows the influence of Dürer's analytical approach filtered through the Bavarian court taste for formal elegance. Anna Scheit's portrait demonstrates his skill in rendering the complex textures of sixteenth-century female dress while capturing individual psychological presence.

The female portrait demonstrates Beham's precise, small-scale technique. The careful rendering of the sitter's features and costume reflects the Nuremberg tradition of descriptive realism.