DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.48092#0083
v.J durer’s great pictures, the heller letters. 63
afraid of death. He went a pilgrimage to Rome and left money
in his will to pay for sending poor pilgrims thither to pray for
his soul’s rest. His portrait, on the wing of the picture Diirer
painted for him, reminded me of the face of a person I saw in an
asylum, suffering from religious mania. For all that, Heller was
shrewd enough about money transactions, but, as we shall see, he
met his match in Diirer.
The value of a good advertisement was well enough under-
stood even in the sixteenth century. Diirer was quick to per-
ceive that, if an important picture by him were to be set up in
one of the principal churches at Frankfurt, the sale of his prints
at the Frankfurt fairs would be all the brisker. He accordingly
undertook to paint the Assumption of the Virgin for Heller and
at once went to work with characteristic energy. He made a
number of excellent studies for the different figures, and of these
studies no fewer than twenty-one have been preserved. They are
in indian ink heightened with white upon grey paper, and most of
them bear the date 1508. The finished picture hung for many
years above Heller’s grave and was considered one of the sights
of Frankfurt. Unluckily Maximilian of Bavaria got possession
of it and carried it off to his palace at Munich, where, in 1674, it
was destroyed by fire. There is a good copy of it, by Jobst
Harrach, in the Saalhof at Frankfurt. The original wings hang
with Harrach’s copy. Each wing is divided both internally and
externally into two compartments. The outside subjects are
painted in stone-colour and represent the Three Kings, SS.
Peter and Paul, S. Thomas Aquinas, and S. Christofer. The
inside compartments bear pictures of the Martyrdoms of S. James
and S. Katherine and portraits of Heller and his wife. Only
the portraits show traces of Durer’s hand, the other panels were
painted from the artist’s design by apprentices, amongst whom
Durer’s younger brother Hans was the principal.
Durer’s letters to Heller about this picture enable us to follow
the progress of the work as we cannot do in any other case.
Incidentally moreover they throw a valuable side-light upon the
artist’s character.
afraid of death. He went a pilgrimage to Rome and left money
in his will to pay for sending poor pilgrims thither to pray for
his soul’s rest. His portrait, on the wing of the picture Diirer
painted for him, reminded me of the face of a person I saw in an
asylum, suffering from religious mania. For all that, Heller was
shrewd enough about money transactions, but, as we shall see, he
met his match in Diirer.
The value of a good advertisement was well enough under-
stood even in the sixteenth century. Diirer was quick to per-
ceive that, if an important picture by him were to be set up in
one of the principal churches at Frankfurt, the sale of his prints
at the Frankfurt fairs would be all the brisker. He accordingly
undertook to paint the Assumption of the Virgin for Heller and
at once went to work with characteristic energy. He made a
number of excellent studies for the different figures, and of these
studies no fewer than twenty-one have been preserved. They are
in indian ink heightened with white upon grey paper, and most of
them bear the date 1508. The finished picture hung for many
years above Heller’s grave and was considered one of the sights
of Frankfurt. Unluckily Maximilian of Bavaria got possession
of it and carried it off to his palace at Munich, where, in 1674, it
was destroyed by fire. There is a good copy of it, by Jobst
Harrach, in the Saalhof at Frankfurt. The original wings hang
with Harrach’s copy. Each wing is divided both internally and
externally into two compartments. The outside subjects are
painted in stone-colour and represent the Three Kings, SS.
Peter and Paul, S. Thomas Aquinas, and S. Christofer. The
inside compartments bear pictures of the Martyrdoms of S. James
and S. Katherine and portraits of Heller and his wife. Only
the portraits show traces of Durer’s hand, the other panels were
painted from the artist’s design by apprentices, amongst whom
Durer’s younger brother Hans was the principal.
Durer’s letters to Heller about this picture enable us to follow
the progress of the work as we cannot do in any other case.
Incidentally moreover they throw a valuable side-light upon the
artist’s character.