Meder albrecht durer biography

Alastair Smart traces the life and work of perhaps the finest printmaker in the history of art, bringer of the Renaissance to Northern Europe and creator of the Rhinoceros, Melencolia I and Knight, Death and the Devil. Illustrated with prints offered at Christie’s

Even as a 13-year-old, he was breaking new ground

Albrecht Dürer was born in the German city of Nuremberg in May 1471, one of 18 children born to Albrecht and Barbara Dürer (only three of whom survived to adulthood). His father — after whom he was named — was a successful goldsmith of Hungarian heritage, and young Albrecht apprenticed with him before deciding on an artistic career instead.

He showed talent at an early age. The silverpoint Self-portrait as a thirteen-year-old of 1484 — in which he depicted himself wide-eyed and chubby-cheeked — is the earliest, securely attributed self-portrait by a European Master that survives, and was created when he had barely become a teenager.

Dürer’s home city was one of the most important in Europe

Lying at the heart of the Holy Roman Empire — and, indeed, Europe — Nuremberg was an economic and manufacturing hub. Silver and copper mined in nearby

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