Beschreibung:

Sadeler (Aegidius, 1570-1629). Portrait of Johann Matthaus Wackenfels von Jungfrauendorf (1550-1619), circa 1614, pen, brown ink and grey wash on laid paper, 24.8 x 16.7 cm (9.8 x 6.6 ins), mounted on 19th century backing card, with collectors stamp CA within an oval to lower right, window-mounted (Qty: 1) Provenance: Estate of Michael Jaffé (1937-1997). A copper engraved portrait of Wackenfels after Sadeler, based on the same image, but with different border ornamentation, was published in Prague in 1614. Johannes Matthaeus Wacker von Wackenfels (1550–1619) was a diplomat, humanist scholar, courtier and author, with an avid interest in history and philosophy. Wacker became Johannes Kepler's patron, and it was he who first brought Kepler the news of Galileo's telescopic discoveries. Kepler dedicated his 1611 pamphlet Strena seu nive sexangula (The Six-Cornered Snowflake) as a New Year gift to his friend. The Kepler conjecture, as it is known, is a mathematical theorem about sphere packing in three-dimensional Euclidean space. Wacker was born in Konstanz in 1550 into a Lutheran Protestant family and studied in Strasbourg, Geneva and Padua. He was supported and promoted by Johannes Crato von Krafftheim, who introduced him into the circle of Renaissance humanism in Northern Europe in Breslau. In 1575 he received his doctorate in Padua, and in 1576 he returned to Breslau and became the confidant of Bishop Andreas von Jerin. In 1583 he married Sophie Poley (1563-92), the sister of Wroclaw businessman Christoph Poley. Wackenfels converted to the Catholic faith in 1592, and in 1595 he married his second wife, Catherine of Troilo, allying himself with one of the most influential families in Wroclaw.