I agree, looking at portraits he looks just fine. I wouldn't call him handsome but certainly not "ugly" or "grotesque". But it seems part of the impact of his appearance was due to his movements and his proportions, neither of which are going to be easy to discern from portraits. Take this image, for example. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/Hans_Chr.... It could be his coat exaggerating his proportions, and maybe some amount of forced perspective, but I can begin to see that his hands are quite large, his head seems a bit small.