DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68073#0263
GERMAN PAINTING
237
PORTRAIT OF A MAN.
Albrecht Durer Collection of the
(1471-1528'). Hon. Andrew W. Mellon.
We should like to know—but we never shall—the name of the man
who looks so keenly from this picture (12^ x 15^4 inches). All that
is known of it is that it belonged to the Collection of Count Bonde, of
Stockholm, before it found its present home.
Albrecht Durer was a great painter of portraits. He began early.
Indeed the first authentic drawing by him is a portrait of himself at
the age of thirteen, which is preserved in the Albertina, Vienna.
At all periods of his life, Diirer painted and drew portraits. To the
early Nuremberg period belongs Frederic the Wise, tempera on linen
(Berlin), and he painted a Portrait of his Father in 1497 (of which there
are several versions). Then there is Oswald Kreil in the Munich Gal-
lery and a Portrait of Himself, a Portrait of a Young Man at Hampton
Court Palace and the very famous Hieronymus Holtzschuher in Berlin.
Diirer’s one idea was to give as exact a representation of the sitter
as possible; and if he painted character as well as the features, it was
because his penetrating eye saw directly through the person. There
was no conscious analysis or deep ponderings of any kind. Diirer
simply saw the person and painted him; and he painted him so well
that we see him, too, just the man he was. Diirer was like a camera;
he depicted every wrinkle and every hair with an amazing effect of
reality and he caught the personality as well. Nothing seems to have
been hidden from his eyesight and nothing seems to have been beyond
the power of his brush.
Albrecht Diirer was the son of a goldsmith of Hungarian origin who
had spent some time in the Netherlands. In 1455 he settled in Nurem-
berg, where Albrecht was born in 1471, the third of eleven children.
His father intended him for a goldsmith, but, seeing his talent, appren-
ticed him to Michael Wolgemuth to serve three years. Of this period
Diirer wrote: “God gave me diligence so that I learned well. And
when I had served my time, my father sent me away and I was absent
four years until my father needed me again; and I set out in 1490
237
PORTRAIT OF A MAN.
Albrecht Durer Collection of the
(1471-1528'). Hon. Andrew W. Mellon.
We should like to know—but we never shall—the name of the man
who looks so keenly from this picture (12^ x 15^4 inches). All that
is known of it is that it belonged to the Collection of Count Bonde, of
Stockholm, before it found its present home.
Albrecht Durer was a great painter of portraits. He began early.
Indeed the first authentic drawing by him is a portrait of himself at
the age of thirteen, which is preserved in the Albertina, Vienna.
At all periods of his life, Diirer painted and drew portraits. To the
early Nuremberg period belongs Frederic the Wise, tempera on linen
(Berlin), and he painted a Portrait of his Father in 1497 (of which there
are several versions). Then there is Oswald Kreil in the Munich Gal-
lery and a Portrait of Himself, a Portrait of a Young Man at Hampton
Court Palace and the very famous Hieronymus Holtzschuher in Berlin.
Diirer’s one idea was to give as exact a representation of the sitter
as possible; and if he painted character as well as the features, it was
because his penetrating eye saw directly through the person. There
was no conscious analysis or deep ponderings of any kind. Diirer
simply saw the person and painted him; and he painted him so well
that we see him, too, just the man he was. Diirer was like a camera;
he depicted every wrinkle and every hair with an amazing effect of
reality and he caught the personality as well. Nothing seems to have
been hidden from his eyesight and nothing seems to have been beyond
the power of his brush.
Albrecht Diirer was the son of a goldsmith of Hungarian origin who
had spent some time in the Netherlands. In 1455 he settled in Nurem-
berg, where Albrecht was born in 1471, the third of eleven children.
His father intended him for a goldsmith, but, seeing his talent, appren-
ticed him to Michael Wolgemuth to serve three years. Of this period
Diirer wrote: “God gave me diligence so that I learned well. And
when I had served my time, my father sent me away and I was absent
four years until my father needed me again; and I set out in 1490