Portrait of the Artist Holding a Thistle
Portrait of the Artist Holding a Thistle | |
---|---|
Artist | Albrecht Dürer |
Year | 1493 |
Type | Oil on vellum (transferred to canvas ca. 1840) |
Dimensions | 56.5 cm × 44.5 cm (22.2 in × 17.5 in) |
Location | Louvre, Paris |
Portrait of the Artist Holding a Thistle (or Eryngium) is an oil painting on parchment pasted on canvas by German artist Albrecht Dürer. Painted in 1493, it is the earliest of Dürer's painted self-portraits and has been identified as one of the first self-portraits painted by a Northern artist.[1] It was acquired in 1922 by the Louvre in Paris.[2]
Dürer looks out at the viewer with a psychologically complex but rather melancholy and reserved, serious minded, facial expression. During the 15th century, thistles were symbols of male conjugal fidelity.[3]
History
In 1493, Dürer was 22 years old and working in Strasbourg. He had completed his apprenticeship with Michael Wolgemut and his tour as a journeyman, and would marry Agnes Frey on 7 July 1494.[4]
The date and the plant in the artist's hand seem to suggest that this is a betrothal portrait (Brautporträt). Dürer has in fact depicted himself in the act of offering a flowering spray identified by botanists as Eryngium amethystinum: its German name is "Mannestreue", meaning conjugal fidelity. Resembling the thistle (from which the portrait's title), this umbelliferous plant is used in medicine, and is regarded as an aphrodisiac.[5] It may also have religious significance; the same plant in outline form is inscribed in the gold ground of Dürer's painting Christ as the Man of Sorrows (1493–94).[4]
Dürer was temperamentally inclined to philosophical doubts. He often analysed his own face in drawn or painted effigies – sometimes idealizing it, sometimes not. The lines written beside the date in this painting reveal the philosophical and Christian intention of the work:
Myj sach die gat
Als es oben schtat.
In other words (and liberally): My affairs follow the course allotted to them on high. Marriage has in part determined his destiny – the Bridegroom puts his future life in the hands of God.[6]
In 1805, Goethe saw a copy of this portrait in the museum at Leipzig and described it as of "inestimable value."[7] According to Lawrence Gowing, who calls this "the most French of all his pictures", the Portrait of the Artist Holding a Thistle is singular among Dürer's paintings as "the touch is freer and color more iridescent than in any other picture one remembers".[2]
See also
References
- ^ Fenyő, Iván (1956). Albrecht Dürer. Budapest: Corvina. p. 16.
- ^ a b Gowing (1987), p. 164
- ^ Brion (1960), p. 127
- ^ a b Wolf (2006), p. 28.
- ^ Botanical herbal note on the eryngium, on Botanical.com. Accessed 13 January 2012
- ^ J.L. Koerner, The Moment of Self-portraiture in German Renaissance Art, University of Chicago Press (1997).
- ^ H. von Einem, Goethe und Dürer – Goethes Kunstphilosophie, Hamburg: von Schröder (1947).
Sources
- Brion, Marcel. Dürer. London: Thames and Hudson, 1960.
- Gowing, Lawrence. Paintings in the Louvre. New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 1987. ISBN 1-55670-007-5
- Wolf, Norbert. Albrecht Dürer. Prestel, 2010. ISBN 978-3-7913-4426-3
Further reading
- Bailey, Martin. Dürer. London: Phaidon Press, 1995. ISBN 0-7148-3334-7
- Bartrum, Giulia. Albrecht Dürer and his Legacy. British Museum Press, 2002. ISBN 0-7141-2633-0
- Campbell Hutchison, Jane. Albrecht Dürer: A Biography. Princeton University Press, 1990. ISBN 0-691-00297-5
- Eser, Thomas. "Dürers Selbstbildnisse als 'Probstücke'. Eine pragmatische Deutung". In: Menschenbilder. Beiträge zur Altdeutschen Kunst, ed. by Andreas Tacke and Stefan Heinz, Petersberg 2011, p. 159–176
- Panofsky, Erwin. "The Life and Art of Albrecht Dürer", Princeton, 1945. ISBN 0-691-00303-3
- Schauerte, Thomas. "Dürer. Das ferne Genie. Eine Biografie". Stuttgart: Reclam, 2012.
- Schmidt, Sebastian: "„dan sӳ machten dy vürtrefflichen künstner reich“. Zur ursprünglichen Bestimmung von Albrecht Dürers Selbstbildnis im Pelzrock". In: Anzeiger des Germanischen Nationalmuseums 2010, p. 65–82.
External links
- Dürer's Self-Portrait at the Louvre
- Catholic Encyclopedia: Dürer
- Bild zeichnen lassen
- v
- t
- e
- Portrait Diptych of Dürer's Parents (1490)
- Portrait of Frederick III of Saxony (1496)
- St. Jerome in the Wilderness (c. 1496)
- Portrait of Dürer's Father at 70 (1497)
- Haller Madonna/Lot and His Daughters (c. 1498)
- Lamentation of Christ (Nuremberg) (attributed, c. 1498)
- Hercules Killing the Stymphalian Birds (1500)
- Seven Sorrows Polyptych (c. 1500)
- Lamentation of Christ (Munich) (c. 1500)
- Jabach Altarpiece (1503–1504)
- Adoration of the Magi (1504)
- Bagnacavallo Madonna (before 1505)
- Christ Among the Doctors (1506)
- Portrait of a Young Venetian Woman (1505)
- Feast of the Rosary (1506)
- Avarice (1507)
- Adam and Eve (1507)
- Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand (1508)
- The Suicide of Lucretia (1518)
- Virgin and Child with Saint Anne (1519)
- Portrait of Emperor Maximilian I (1519)
- Portrait of Jakob Fugger (c. 1520)
- Portrait of Bernhart von Reesen (1521)
- Saint Jerome in His Study (1521)
- The Four Apostles (1526)
- Portrait of Hieronymus Holzschuher (1526)
- Portrait of Johann Kleberger (1526)
- Portrait of Jakob Muffel (1526)
- Self-Portrait at the Age of 13 (drawing, 1484)
- Portrait of the Artist Holding a Thistle (1493)
- Self-Portrait at 26 (1498)
- Self-Portrait at 28 (1500)
engravings
- List of woodcuts, engravings
- The Holy Family with the Dragonfly (1495)
- The Holy Family with Three Hares (1496)
- Apocalypse (1498)
- Saint Michael Fighting the Dragon (1498)
- The Four Witches (1497)
- The Sea Monster (1498–1500)
- Saint Sebastian at the Column (1500)
- Visitation (1503)
- Joachim and Anne Meeting at the Golden Gate (1504)
- Great Passion (1497–1510)
- Life of the Virgin (1510–1511)
- Small Passion (1511)
- Knight, Death and the Devil (1513)
- Melencolia I (1514)
- Saint Jerome in His Study (1514)
- Triumphal Arch (1515)
- Rhinoceros (1515)
- Large Triumphal Carriage (1522)
- Portrait of Erasmus (1526)
watercolours
- Young Hare (1502)
- Great Piece of Turf (1503)
- Madonna of the Animals (c. 1503)
- Praying Hands (c. 1508)
- Wing of a European Roller (1512)
- Portrait of the Artist's Mother at the Age of 63 (1514)
- Head of a Walrus (1514)
- The Virgin and Child with a Flower on a Grassy Bench (c. 1503)
- Dresden Altarpiece (c. 1496–1497/1503–1504)
- Paumgartner Altarpiece (c. 1500)
- Jabach Altarpiece (c. 1503–1504)
- Heller Altarpiece (c. 1508) (with Matthias Grünewald)
- Adoration of the Trinity (1511)
- Alte Pinakothek (Self-Portrait) (2000 photograph)
- Dürer (crater)