Just what is it that makes identification-portrait hypotheses so appealing? : on why Hans Süss von Kulmbach ‘must’ have portrayed John Boner

The alleged apprentice of Albrecht Dürer, Hans Süss von Kulmbach (d. 1522), ‘must’ have painted at least one crypto-portrait of the Krakow banker John Boner (d. 1523), who went down in history as ‘the Polish Jacob Fugger.’ Such a conviction has seemingly inspired art-history scholarship devoted to Kulmbach and his relations to Poland. What varies is the selection of figures in his religious pictures claimed to represent Boner. This paper aims to examine two best argued theories, which concern two panel paintings preserved in the collection of St Mary’s Basilica in Krakow: Disputation of St Catherine of Alexandria with heathen philosophers, 1514-15, and Self-burial of St John the Evangelist, 1516. The suspect images will be analysed in terms of the enduring ‘premodern’ concept of recognizability, with focus on such aspects as mimesis versus schematism, heraldry and costume.