Metapictor | Embedded Self-Portraits in Fifteenth-Century Painting – A Systematic Assessment

Metapictor is part of the project Embedded Self-Portraits in Fifteenth-Century Painting. A Systematic Assessment (2020–2025) led by Lukas Madersbacher (LFU Innsbruck) and funded by the FWF (Principal Investigator Project P 33552). This upload contains the dataset collected as part of the Metapictor database curated by Elisabeth Krabichler, senior staff member.

Context and methodology

The aim of the project was to record, analyse and evaluate potential embedded self-portraits in Fifteenth-Century wall and panel paintings (in Italian, Dutch and German-speaking regions) and to make the collected data available digitally (open access). In addition the data will be published via a publicly accessible web application based on a relational database.

The data collected in the digital archive includes research data and further information on the project.

The research data is divided into catalogue entries in which objects (with object data) are combined with the data collected in the categories Artist, Portraits and Contexts.

Artist: biographical data, overarching contexts, possible self-portraits

Portraits: theses on possible self-portraits, state of research and plausibility

Contexts: considerations on thematic references, multi-part art objects, groups of works and overarching aspects

A detailed explanation of the data, their function and structure is provided in the readme.pdf (German) attached to the data set.

Technical details

Database provided in the following formats: .sqlite, .json and, .xml

Documentation of the database structure in .pdf format (German)

Further details

Web platform: https://explore-research.uibk.ac.at/arts/metapictor/ (with further information on methodology).