Facts about Albrecht Dürer
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The Feast of the Rose Garlands, painted by Dürer in 1506 for the German merchants' chapel in Venice, depicts the Virgin Mary flanked by Pope Julius II and Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I.
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Dürer's 1507 painting of Saint Jerome sold for 100 gold guilders in Antwerp, making it one of the highest prices paid for a living artist's work during the Renaissance.
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Dürer's meticulous watercolor paintings of plants and animals, created between 1500 and 1528, pioneered scientific naturalism in art by depicting specimens with unprecedented anatomical accuracy.
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Dürer's theoretical writings on fortification design, published in 1527 shortly after his death, influenced military architecture across Europe for generations through detailed geometric principles.
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A 1471 apprenticeship contract bound Dürer to goldsmith Wolgemut for three years, establishing the technical foundation for his later mastery of fine printmaking techniques.
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Dürer's 1515 woodcut of a rhinoceros, created from a written description rather than direct observation, became the most widely reproduced image of the animal for over three centuries.
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Dürer's 1506 painting of the Madonna and Child sold for an astronomical price in Venice, establishing him as a master whose works commanded premium valuations during his lifetime.
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Adam and Eve, Dürer's 1504 engraving, depicts the first humans at life-size proportions based on classical Apollo and Venus sculptures, establishing an ideal Renaissance standard.
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Dürer's 1498 journey to Venice shaped his artistic technique profoundly, exposing him to Italian Renaissance masters and influencing his subsequent development of perspective and proportion studies.
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Approximately 930 known prints exist from Dürer's workshop, making him one of the most prolific printmakers of the sixteenth century across woodcuts and engravings.
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Dürer's copperplate engraving of 1514 titled Melencolia I remains one of the most complex and symbolically rich prints of the Renaissance, featuring a magic square with the numbers 1 through 16.
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Self-portraits constitute approximately 120 of Dürer's documented works across paintings, drawings, and prints created between 1484 and 1527.
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Dürer's 1498 self-portrait oil painting, created at age 26, was revolutionary for depicting the artist as an idealized intellectual rather than a craftsman.
- 03
Dürer's 1471 birth in Nuremberg made him a contemporary of Leonardo da Vinci, though the printmaker would become Europe's most prolific engraver and woodcut artist of the Renaissance.
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During a 1521 trip to the Netherlands, Dürer spent 123 guilders to view a preserved whale specimen, recording the encounter in his detailed travel journal.
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In 1525, the German artist Dürer published a theoretical treatise on human proportions containing over 200 woodcut illustrations demonstrating ideal bodily measurements.