Most people are familiar with this image of Voïevode Michael the Brave (r. 1593-1601), which they consider a real likeness:

The print was made in Prague around 1601 by Aegidius Sadeler, court artist to Emperor Rudolph II. It was then that Michael the Brave went to Prague to seek aid from the Habsburg emperor, as he was under attack in all three principalities. This is probably the best-known image of the Romanian ruler: widely circulated among contemporaries, it was used as an inspiration by later artists too.  

Romanian artist Theodore Aman must have known it when he created the ruler’s idealized image, now with the Aman Museum in Bucharest. In it both age, posture and costume reveal a Romantic interpretation rather than historic accuracy.

Michael the Brave was the first Romanian ruler to be included in an album celebrating illustrious sixteenth-century historical characters. 

However, the very first contemporary image of Michael the Brave is this portrait made in 1598 by one Giovanni Orlandi. It is quite surprising, isn’t it? The man in this print does not wear the distinctive sable hat (made from the pelt of Martes Zibellina) with crane feathers set in precious stones, but rather a sheepskin that covers a breastplate, a piece of military armor.

Another portrait of Michael the Brave from the year 1601 was made by Domenicus Custos, also a court artist to Emperor Rudolph II. This portrait, a print of which is with the Teohari Antonescu County Museum in Giurgiu, is quite similar to the first one we looked at. Yet it does show a few interesting differences particularly as far as the clothing and the expression are concerned.

Actually, to people nearly five centuries ago, the ‘true image’ of an illustrious contemporary such as Michael the Brave was a mixture of features and expressions artists could ‘catch’ by observing the person face to face (eyes, nose, beard; wonder, determination, anger), standard attributes (clothes) and gestures or postures that befitted the person’s status. 

Of these four images, which do you think is the ‘true likeness’ of Michael the Brave?