Portret van een man met een hoed

The emperor is shown in a right-facing profile featuring a prominent aquiline nose and a thick fur-trimmed collar. He wears a large, soft-brimmed hat with a buckle, set against a background of dense, gridded cross-hatching. This engraving demonstrates a technique that replicates the bold, rhythmic lines of a 16th-century woodcut on a copper plate.

Maximilian I was a central patron of Northern Renaissance humanism and established the cultural lineage of the Habsburgs that culminated in the esoteric court of Rudolf II. Goltzius’s homage to Dürer reflects the late-16th-century 'Dürer-Renaissance,' where Mannerist artists sought to link their contemporary virtuosity to the historical and intellectual prestige of early German masters.