Portrait of Carl Christof Pfyffer von Altishofen, half-length, in an embroidered red coat; and Portrait of Anna Maria Pfyffer von Altishofen, née Sonnenberg, half-length, in a richly embroidered dress and shawl

The sitters, identified by inscriptions on the reverse of each painting and by the coats-of-arms, are Karl Christoph Pfyffer von Altishofen (Lucerne 1685-1768) and his wife Anna Maria Franziska von Sonnenberg (d. Lucerne 1757), respectively members of two of the most prominent families of the Lucerne aristocracy. Johann Schindler, born to a family originating in Zug, was active in Lucerne in the first decades of the eighteenth century, painting four lateral altars for the church of the Discalced Carmelites just before his death in 1736.