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The model is painted in three-quarter profile against a neutral background. His clothing is austere: a black pourpoint, a rose-purple gown and a small neck-ruff. Turning to the right, he possesses a certain natural authority. His face, with its lively and immediate brushwork, exudes an extraordinary presence, fixing the viewer directly with a penetrating, slightly worried look. We are in front of an intimate portrait, disturbed only slightly by a Latin inscription. Added later, this has the merit of identifying both the subject and the painter. The former is Hubert Goltzius, the latter Anthonis Mor, a painter attached to the service of Philip II.
Uncle of the famous Hendrick Goltzius and a pupil of Lambert Lombard from Liêge, Goltzius was a painter, engraver and humanist. Thanks to his Bruges patron Marcus Laurinus, a passionate student of archaeology, he was able to publish several works on ancient history and numismatics, a subject very popular among scholars and collectors of the time. It is precisely the publication of one of his books that is said to lie at the origin of the painting represented here. According to the biographer Van Mander, Mor proposed painting it for the scholar to thank him for the gift of a copy of his treatise Caesar Augustus, published in January 1574. By a happy coincidence, this work, carrying Goltzius' dedication, is currently conserved in the Museum's library.
This portrait of the numismatist is one of Mor's last paintings. With its strong sense of humanity it stands out against the rest of his oeuvre, consisting essentially of dignified official portraits, often of princes and aristocrats from various European courts. The painter applied all his skill to this work, capturing his model's facial expression with a few key features in a single sitting. Indeed, Mor is said to have painted it on the spur of the moment, in under an hour, without study or preliminary drawing, after a breakfast with his friend Goltzius. On 24 February 1574 the humanist wrote to Abraham Ortelius that he intended using the painting to illustrate one of his next editions. In this way, the effigy appears as an engraving in Sicilia et Magna Graecia, which came off the press in 1576, framed with the same inscription as the painting.
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