Page 289 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

and experiences. This explains the adjustments he
made to Venetian art during his Italian travels and
to artistic developments in the Netherlands when
he stayed in Antwerp in 1520-1521. For example,
the musical angel at the feet of the Virgin in
the Brotherhood of the Rose Garland of 1506
(Narodni Galerie, Prague), is essentially Venetian
in style. As the most important painting he pro-
duced during the second Italian journey, this
altarpiece combines the German formula of the
Rosenkranzbilder with the traditional characteris-
tics of Venetian paintings such as, for example,
Giovanni Bellini's Doge Agostino Barbarigo
Presented to the Virgin of 1488 (San Pietro Mar-
tire, Murano). Diirer's friendship with Bellini, in
fact, is attested to by a passage of a letter he sent
to Willibald Pirckheimer from Venice on 7 Feb-
ruary 1506: ". . . Giovanni Bellini, has highly
praised me before many nobles. He wanted to
have something of mine, and himself came to me
and asked me to paint him something and he
would pay well for it. And all men tell me what an
upright man he is, so that I am really friendly
with him. He is very old, but is still the best pain-
ter of them all" (Conway 1889, 48). The letters
Diirer wrote to Pirckheimer from Venice, inci-
dentally, also describe in great detail his purchase
of jewels, pearls and precious stones. While stay-
ing in Venice Diirer became increasingly inter-
ested in Giorgione's art. Diirer's Portrait of a
Venetian Lady in Berlin (Staatliche Museen
Preussischer Kulturbesitz) and his Portrait of a
Young Man of 1506 (Galleria di Palazzo Rosso,
Genoa) show clearly the influence of that young
Venetian master, as does the Old Woman with a
Bag of Coins which Diirer painted on the reverse
of the Portrait of a Young Man (Kunsthistorisches with the artist's monogram and dated 1515. The 192
Museum, Vienna), a work dating from after his two charcoal portraits render with great subtlety
return to Nuremberg (1507). This striking image the features and personality of the sitter. The like- Albrecht Diirer
recalls Giorgione's famous La Vecchia, a portrait ness is so close that the drawings must depict the Nuremberg, 1471-1528
of an old woman (Gallerie deirAccademia, Venice). same sitter and not two sisters, as is commonly PORTRAIT OF A BLACK MAN
J.M.M. supposed. Nor is there any evidence for an identi-
fication of the subject with Diirer's niece, his 1505-1506 ?
sister-in-law, or his maid Susanna. Why Diirer charcoal on paper
1Q1 executed the drawing is not known, but the artist 32X21.8 (l2V2X8y2)
Nuremberg 1971, 286-288, no. 534;
references:
Albrecht Diirer seems to have used another study of the same Devisse and Mollat 1979, 252-253, ig. 264;
f
model for his
and
Virgin
Child with Saint Anne of
Nuremberg, 1471-1528 Strauss 1974, 2:1062-1063, no. 1508/24
1519 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York),
YOUNG WOMAN WITH BRAIDED HAIR a painting in which he used a study of his wife Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna
Agnes for the face of Saint Anne. Diirer's first
1515
charcoal on paper known portraits in charcoal date from 1503; his
3
l
42 x 29 (i6 /2 x n /s) best known work in this medium is the portrait of This drawing is difficult to date, since the mono-
references: Winkler 1936-1939, 3:30-31, no. and his mother drawn in 1514, less than two months gram and the date 1508 seem to have been added
fig. 562; Strauss 1974, 3:1578-1581, no. 1515/53; before her death. Later, during his travels to the later. Diirer was already drawing with charcoal in
Anzelewsky and Mielke 1984, 81-82, no. and fig. 78 Netherlands, Diirer developed a new type of 1503 — an example is his splendid portrait of his
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen Preussischer highly finished drawing rendering the subject in friend Pirckheimer (Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin).
Kulturbesitz, Berlin tonal terms against a dark background. Employing The present portrait may have been executed
this technique, Diirer could produce an elaborate during the second trip to Venice in 1505-1506,
This large portrait is the same size and in the portrait in an hour or two. Such studies provided as has been suggested, for example, by Strieder
same medium as another study of the same sitter him with a steady income during his trip, although . (Nuremberg 1971, 286). A later date, however,
in the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm (Strauss most were probably done primarily to satisfy his c. 1515, as is often proposed, cannot be excluded,
1974, 3:1578-1579, no. 1515/52); both are signed numerous admirers. J.M.M. as Diirer could easily have seen a black man in
288 CIRCA 1492