GOTTFRIED VON WEDIG | PORTRAITS OF PETER OSTERMANN AND HIS WIFE GERTRUDE KIEVER

Salomon Collection, Paris, by 1933 (information kindly provided by the vendor);

David Gensburg, Beverly Hills, California;

His posthumous sale, et al., New York, Christie's, 15 January 1988, lot 18 (as Frisian School, 17th Century);

With Prins Galleries, Chicago, 1988;

Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby's, 7 July 1993, lot 277;

Anonymous sale, South Kensington, Christie's, 7 July 1994, lot 314a.

H. Vey, "Neues zu Augustin Braun und einegin Kölner Zeitgenossen," in Wallraf-Richartz Jahrbuch, LI, 1990, pp. 184-6, reproduced figs. 16 and 17;

A. Repp-Eckert, K. Wettengl and E. Mai, in Gottfried von Wedig 1583-1641: Stilleben und Porträts, exhibition catalogue, Cologne 1998, pp. 58-61, nos. 10 and 11, reproduced in color.

Gottfried von Wedig was born in Cologne, the grandson of the famous Cologne painter Bartolomäus Braun the Younger. A member of the Congregation of Emigrés—originally fugitives from religious persecution in the Netherlands—he established his reputation there as a painter of portraits and also of still-lifes in the tradition of painters such as Peter Binoit and Georg Flegel. 

Gottfried von Wedig was born in Cologne, the grandson of the famous Cologne painter Bartolomäus Braun the Younger. A member of the Congregation of Emigrés—originally fugitives from religious persecution in the Netherlands—he established his reputation there as a painter of portraits and also of still-lifes in the tradition of painters such as Peter Binoit and Georg Flegel.

This elegant pair of portraits was presumably painted to mark the sitters' marriage in Cologne in or around 1627, and certainly before 1628 when they signed a joint will together as husband and wife. On the basis of their coats-of-arms they can be identified as Peter Ostermann, a lawyer from Westphalia, and his first wife Gertrud Kiever from Cologne. Originally from a Calvinist family in Hamm, Ostermann seems to have became a Catholic convert, and enjoyed a successful legal career in Cologne, becoming Professor of the University there in 1626. He left the city for Mainz in 1630, spending subsequent time in Vienna and Heilbronn before dying in Bonn in 1657. He is shown here wearing a gold toothpick of elaborate manufacture. His wife's similarly expensive attire attests to her status as a member of Cologne's wealthy patrician classes.