_Albrecht Dürer_ (German: 1471-1528).
The acquisition of this picture adds to the Gallery a fine
example of the great artist, who in all the characteristics
of his art is the central representative of the German
spirit,--"its combination of the wild and rugged with the
homely and the tender, its meditative depth, its enigmatic
gloom, its sincerity and energy, its iron diligence and
discipline." The range of his powers is shown not only in
his works that survive, but in the estimation in which he
was held by his contemporaries. When he went to Venice they
"praised his beautiful colouring," Bellini honoured him with
his friendship, "and he was everywhere treated," so he wrote,
"as a gentleman." Raphael sent him some drawings, on one of
which this note in Dürer's handwriting may still be seen:
"Raphael of Urbino, who has been so highly esteemed by the
Pope, drew these naked figures, and sent them to Albrecht Dürer
in Nuremberg to show him his hand." He was a writer as well as
an artist. "Painting," said Melanchthon, "was the least of his
accomplishments"; whilst of his personal qualities Luther bore
testimony when he wrote: "As for Dürer, assuredly affection
bids us mourn for one who was the best of men.... May he rest
in peace with his fathers: Amen!"
He was born at Nuremberg--the son of a goldsmith and the third
of eighteen children--and Albert of Nuremberg he remained
to the end--the painter of a city distinguished for its
"self-restrained, contented, quaint domesticity." His first
training was from his father in the goldsmith's trade; next,
when fifteen, he was apprenticed for three and a half years
to Wohlgemuth, the chief painter of the town; and lastly
came his _Wanderjahre_, a long course of travel and study
in foreign lands. In 1494 he settled down at Nuremberg, and
there, with the exception of a visit to Venice in 1505-1506
(see p. 190 _n._), and to the Netherlands in 1520-1521, he
passed the remainder of his life in the busy and honoured
exercise of the various branches of his art. He had married,
at the age of twenty-three, a well-to-do merchant's daughter.
The stories which have long passed current with regard to her
being imperious, avaricious, and fretful, have been entirely
discredited on closer knowledge of the facts. The marriage was
childless, but husband and wife lived throughout on terms both
of affection and companionship. As for examples of Dürer's
work, the widely-spread prints of the "Knight and Death"
and the "Melancholia" give the best idea of his powers of
imagination; while in actual specimens of his handiwork in
drawing, the British Museum is the second richest collection in
the world.
The best commentary on this picture is the description of his father
which Dürer wrote in a history of his family:--
"My dear father became a goldsmith, a pure and skilful man. He
passed his life in great toil and stern, hard labour, having
nothing for his support save what he earned with his hand for
himself, his wife, and his children; so that he had little
enough. He underwent, moreover, manifold afflictions, trials,
and adversities. But he won just praise from all who knew him,
for he lived an honourable, Christian life; was a man patient
of spirit, mild and peaceable to all, and very thankful towards
God. For himself he had little need of company and worldly
pleasures: he was also of few words, and was a God-fearing man.
This my dear father was very careful with his children to bring
them up in the fear of God; for it was his highest wish to
train them well that they might be pleasing in the sight both
of God and man. Wherefore his daily speech to us was that we
should love God and deal truly with our neighbours."
It is just such a man that the painter here sets before us. "The face
is pathetic with the deep furrows ploughed in by seventy years of
labour and sorrow. Yet as he stands there, so quietly, for his son
to paint him, there is just a trace of pleasure and pride lurking in
the kind old face" (Conway's _Literary Remains of Dürer_, p. 35). An
inscription on the top of the panel records that it was painted in
1497, when the father was seventy and the son twenty-six. There are
three other versions of the picture--at Munich, Frankfort, and Syon
House respectively, and the question which is the original has been
much disputed. The present picture (exhibited at the Old Masters, 1903)
was bought, with No. 1937, for £10,000 from the Marquis of Northampton.