Today I return part-time to @britishmuseum to work on the wonderful #WaddesdonBequest. Hello again Sigismund Pfinzing! Sigismund who?

Sigismund (also Sigmund) was born in Nuremberg in 1479, the son of Seitz and Barbara. You see him here aged 79, or so says the text on the medallion.

http://wb.britishmuseum.org/MCN10614#1188410001 or https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_WB-255

But Pfinzing died on September 5, 1554. So he can't have been 79. Did the artist confuse 9 and 6? Another other contemporary portrait tells us that he actually died aged 75, in Leipzig. The mystery deepens.

http://www.portraitindex.de/dokumente/pnd/1019745762

A note on the back in a later hand attributes the work to Joachim Deschler. Dalston dated this medallion 1554, but it looks like this needs revisiting. It is always exciting to follow these leads. I'm delighted to be back and disappearing off down these burrows!