Dürer, Albrecht [Ill.]: The passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, portrayed by Albert Dürer (London, 1844)

Preface.


HIS work by Albert Durer, justly called the
Apelles of Germany, may be introduced to
the general reader by a few brief words on
his biography.


LBERT DURER'S early life, like that of
many of the most eminent medieval Artists,
was passed in the workshop of a Goldfmith.
He was the son and grandson of a goldsmith,
but he left his father's craft in his sixteenth year, to

become a Student of Painting under Michael Wolge-
muth, and a most indefatigable Artist in all 'branches of
Art up to the time of his death. We find his well-
known monogram on Paintings,* Sculptures, f Engrav-

* The Paintings of Albert Durer are by no means common in
this country. The best specimen in the metropolis is an altar-piece
in three parts, in the Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace, which
formerly belonged to Charles I., and is described in James the Second's
Catalogue as “ Our Lady with Christ in her lap with a coronet on her
head; two fryars by them and two doors." Mrs. Jameson has given
a full account of it in her Companion to private Picture Galleries, p. 23.
There is a Portrait of a Youth by him (No. 303), and a St. Jerome,
said to be after Albert Durer (No. 563), at Hampton Court Palace.
In the Sutherland Gallery is a small painting on copper of the Death
of the Virgin. (See Mrs. Jameson ut supra p. 204.)
t In the Print Room of the Britilh Museum is a specimen of Albert
b