Talk:Louis II, Count of Nassau-Weilburg

No existing images of Louis II, Count of Nassau-Weilburg are known to history experts
In the German Wikipedia we are currently discussing the recurring false images of Count Louis II, Count of Nassau-Weilburg To this count no images are known so far. Instead, there is sometimes confusion with pictures of counts who are also called Louis, but came from the Ottonian line of the House of Nassau.

The corresponding discussion page is here (unfortunately only in German).

Currently, many Wikipedia projects use for Louis II, Count of Nassau-Weilburg engravings, which show indeed a portrait of Louis Gunther of Nassau. The wrong image should be removed as soon as possible from all corresponding articles about Louis II, Count of Nassau-Weilburg. Thank you very much for your understanding, that we also place the discussion here in English as a reference for other Wikipedias and to make it transparent for future occasions in this matter. --Stolp (talk) 13:46, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

Occasion in year 2012
The picture added by this edit on 25 October 2012 cannot be Count Louis II of Nassau-Weilburg but rather an image of Count Louis of Nassau-Dillenburg. According to information on the website of the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, the painting was painted in 1574 at the latest, so Louis from Nassau-Weilburg-Saarbrücken would only have been nine years old there! Do we have here the picture of a boy who is five to nine years old? Obviously not. Again, this painting by Master Adriaen Thomasz Key at the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya does not depict Count Louis II of Nassau-Weilburg, but rather Count Louis of Nassau-Dillenburg, who came from the Ottonian line of the House of Nassau, already obvious due to the period of origin 1570 – 1574.

In fact, no portrait of Count Louis II of Nassau-Weilburg and Saarbrücken is known to this day! The Ludwigsgymnasium, a German Grammar school, celebrated the 400th anniversary of its existence in 2004. In this context a commemorative publication has been published for which it would have been desirable to include the portrait of the founder - Count Louis II - in a historical article dealing with the history of the school since its foundation. Hans-Walter Herrmann, the author of this article, demonstratively inserted a gold frame with a blue canvas and provided it with the caption: "Count Louis II of Nassau-Saarbrücken (1565 – 1627) founded the Gymnasium in 1604. There is no picture of him." Further in the text there is once again a sentence about it: "No gravestone sculpture of Count Louis II has become known and so far no portraits, whose copy would have earned a place of honour in the grammar school founded by him, so that we cannot get an impression of his appearance". So I removed this wrong picture from the articles 2012, so that Wikipedia was clean again at least at this point. N.B.: It would have been a great pleasure for me if a picture of Count Louis II from the Walramic line of the House of Nassau had actually appeared here thanks to the swarm intelligence. --Stolp (talk) 13:46, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

Occasion in year 2019


User Adelfrank discovered that in many Wikipedia projects again an obviously wrong picture of Count Louis II of Nassau-Weilburg was used and wrote this fact on the discussion page of the German article. When I saw the discussion contribution, I could only agree with him. The source of the wrong image used in Wikipedia was a mistake by the Austrian National Library. Adelfrank had informed the library about the mistake and they already did a correction.

If a portrait of Count Louis II of Nassau-Weilburg actually existed, the regional historians in Saarland and Hesse (e.g. at the Wiesbaden Museum) would have known about it long ago. However, if the Saarland history expert Hans-Walter Herrmann says that he does not know any image of the count, then there is almost certainly no preserved picture. Possibly once existing illustrations were lost probably sometime in the turmoil of the many wars from beginning of the 17th to end of the 18th century. At the latest after the castle Saarbrücken had burned down in 1793 by French revolutionary forces, they could have been finally lost.

A comparison of Lodewijk's two images (this discussion page above left and bottom right) is very illuminating. Count Lodewijk, by the way, is a nephew of count Louis of Nassau-Dillenburg whose picture can be seen also on this discussion page (above right). Some years ago, in 2012, this image was also a supposed Count Louis of Nassau-Weilburg, who was haunted by the various Wikipedia sister projects. On all articles concerned I will write a link here on discussion pages, namely that in reality no portrait of Count Louis of Nassau-Weilburg is known to any expert yet and that the appearance of alleged illustrations are usually confusions with the Lodewijks of the Ottonian line from the same time.

The wrong image was removed from all corresponding articles about Louis II, Count of Nassau-Weilburg and especially also from wikidata:Q559437. --Stolp (talk) 20:40, 17 January 2019 (UTC)