D�rer, Albrecht 1471-1528
German painter and engraver

Albrecht D�rer was born in Nuremberg, the son of a goldsmith from Hungary. In 1486 he was apprenticed to Michael Wolgemut, the chief illustrator of the Nuremberg Chronicle, and in 1490 started on travels that lasted four years. In 1497 he set up on his own; he completed many paintings, among them the Dresden triptych, and the Baumgartner altarpiece in Munich.

In 1498 he published his first great series of designs on wood, the illustrations of the Apocalypse. The copperplates of this period include The Prodigal Son (1500) and Adam and Eve (1504). From 1505 to 1506 he visited Venice, and there produced the Feast of the Rosaries, now the property of Strahow monastery, Prague. On or before his return he painted Adam and Eve (1507), now in Madrid; and the triptych Assumption of the Virgin, the centre of which was destroyed by fire in Munich in 1674. It was followed in 1511 by the Adoration of the Trinity, now in Vienna.

D�rer did much work for Maximilian I, including several portraits, and 43 pen-and-ink drawings for his prayer book. In his honour D�rer drew the Triumphal Car and (with others) the Triumphal Arch, which were engraved on wood, the latter on 92 blocks, forming a surface of 100 square feet (9.3m²), the largest known woodcut.

From 1520 to 1521 D�rer visited the Netherlands. He met Erasmus in Antwerp, and was present at the coronation of Charles V, who appointed him his court painter. During his later years he met Martin Luther and showed great sympathy with the Reformation.

As an engraver on metal and a designer of woodcuts he ranks even higher than as a painter. His work is distinguished by an unerring perception of the capabilities of the material, his metalplates being executed with extreme finish and refinement, while his woodcuts are boldly drawn with a broad expressive line. His copperplates, over 100 in number, include the Little Passion (16 plates, 1508-13); the Knight, Death, and the Devil (1513); St Jerome in his Study and Melancholia (1514). He may also be regarded as the inventor of etching, as he produced several plates in which all the lines are bitten with acid. He completed about 200 woodcuts, including the Greater Passion, 12 subjects; The Little Passion, 37 subjects; and The Apocalypse, 16 subjects. He also wrote several treatises on measurement and human proportion.

Bibliography: F Anzelewsky, D�rer: His Life and Art (1983).