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Self-Portrait with Fur-Trimmed Robe

Albrecht Dürer · Renaissance & Mannerism

Artist: Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528)
Date: 1500
Dimensions: 67.1 x 48.9 cm
Medium: Oil on lime panel
Location: Alte Pinakothek, Munich, Germany

In 1500, aged twenty-eight, Albrecht Dürer painted himself facing the viewer head-on, with long curled hair and a fur-trimmed coat. The frontal, symmetrical pose had until then been reserved almost exclusively for images of Christ.

A closer look

The deliberate resemblance to Christ is striking and bold. Dürer seems to suggest that the artist’s creative gift is a reflection of God’s own creative power. The right hand, placed at the centre of the chest, draws attention to the hand that paints. Every hair of his beard and every strand of fur is rendered with astonishing precision. The Latin inscription states that he painted himself in everlasting colours at the age of twenty-eight.

History of the painting

Dürer kept the self-portrait, and after his death it hung in Nuremberg's town hall as a treasure of the city. In 1805, when Nuremberg was in financial trouble and about to lose its independence to Bavaria, it was sold to the Bavarian royal collection in Munich. It has been one of the treasures of the Alte Pinakothek since the museum opened in 1836.

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