Portrait of Susanna Maria von Sandrart

Oil on canvas, doubled. In 1700, Wolfgang Moritz Endter commissioned a portrait of his wife from painter Johann Leonhard Hirschmann. The lady was a member of one of Germany's best-known artistic families of the 17th century. Her great-uncle, Joachim von Sandrart, was the only German artist of his day to enjoy an international reputation. Susanna's father, Jacob von Sandrart, was also famous. He settled in Regensburg as an engraver, and in 1654 married Regina Christina Eimmart, the sister of the major engraver and mathematician Georg Christoph Eimmart. In 1656, Jacob von Sandrart moved to Nuremberg, where he founded Germany's first academy of painting in 1662. In 1683, Susanna Maria von Sandrart married painter Johann Paul Auer, who left her a widow after only four years of marriage. After his death, she engraved reproductions for her father's publishing house, and in 1695 she married Endter, a Nuremberg publisher and book dealer.