The ornamental frame in fine black-and-white painting dates from the first half of the nineteenth century and imbues the panel with respectability. The Derrer family of Nuremberg, which died out in 1706, was one of the city’s leading families, with the right to elect councillors. In 1579, Balthasar Derrer (1509–1586) became one of Nuremberg’s three Losunger (very senior officials of the imperial city, who held the keys to the locked room where the imperial regalia were kept); in the same year he became imperial magistrate.

The shields of the husband and wife, before richly decorated architecture, dominate the composition. In the two lower corners sit allegories of Charity (with two children, on the left) and Hope (with an anchor as attribute, on the right). Balthasar’s wife Magdalena Bayr died in 1591.