Portret van Simon Moritz von Donepp 1649

Elias Widemann made this print of Simon Moritz von Donepp in 1649. The armor, the sash, the ornate frame, and the Latin inscription: all these visual cues work together to signal status. The Holy Roman Empire in which Widemann was working was a highly stratified society. A man’s status was inherited, and jealously guarded. So, the sitter and the artist want to make it perfectly clear that Simon Moritz von Donepp is someone of substance, someone not to be trifled with. The print would have served as a calling card of sorts, evidence to others of Donepp's place in society. But who was Donepp? What was his relationship to Widemann? These are the kinds of questions an art historian might ask. Luckily, prints like this often survive in multiples, and can be found in libraries and archives. By looking at related documents, we can begin to reconstruct the social world in which this image was created.