Against a black background, a young man with long flowing hair and a beard faces us head-on, solemn, his right hand touching the fur collar of his coat. His looks and pose are strikingly like contemporary images of Christ. It is the twenty-eight-year-old Dürer's portrait of himself, one of the boldest and most intriguing self-portraits in the history of art.
Key facts
- Artist
- Albrecht Dürer1471–1528 · German
- Date
- 1500
- Period
- Northern Renaissance1430–1580
- Medium
- Oil on lime panel
- Dimensions
- 67.1 × 48.9 cm
- Location
- Alte Pinakothek Munich, Germany
Actual size
Compared with an adult 170 cm tall
Palette
#0B0B09#351E09#583615#A47D55Background
This is the last of Dürer's three painted self-portraits. The one of 1493 is now in the Louvre and the one of 1498 in the Prado; in both he sits at an angle, fashionably dressed, showing off his youthful good looks. The portrait of 1500 is fully frontal, grave and inward.
The year 1500 opened a new century, and in the medieval view of life's stages the age of twenty-eight marked the passage from youth to maturity. Dürer's picture commemorates both an epoch and a personal milestone.
Dürer probably gave or sold the painting to the Nuremberg city council, and it was on public display in his home town for nearly three centuries. In 1805 it was sold to the Bavarian royal collection, and it is now in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich.
Technique & composition
In 1500 a fully frontal pose was almost unheard of in secular portraits; it was reserved for images of Christ. Dürer made his face almost perfectly symmetrical about the line of the nose, giving the picture the solemn timelessness of an icon.
With the finest of brushes Dürer painted and , every strand distinct. This goldsmith's precision was his hallmark.
Details
Symbolism
In the image of Christ
, the long parted hair and all borrow the conventions of images of Christ. It could be read as arrogance or even blasphemy; more likely it declares Dürer's belief that artistic talent is God-given and that the artist's creation imitates God's.
The painter's signature
, which can also be read as Anno Domini, “in the year of our Lord”. reads: “I, Albrecht Dürer of Nuremberg, portrayed myself thus in everlasting colours at the age of twenty-eight.”
Stories
- Did you know?
In Dürer's other self-portraits his hair is reddish-blond; here it is brown, closer to the traditional colouring of Christ.
- Did you know?
The face was later used for Christ in earnest: around 1520 the printmaker Sebald Beham based a woodcut of Christ on it, which was long mistaken for a work by Dürer himself.
Legacy
Before Dürer, painters were largely regarded as craftsmen; this self-portrait proclaims the artist a dignified creator with a God-given gift. It opened the tradition of self-exploration through self-portraiture carried on by Rembrandt, Van Gogh and many others.
