1938. PORTRAIT OF HIS FATHER.
Albrecht Dürer (German: 1471-1528).
The acquisition of this picture adds to the Gallery a fine example of the great artist, who in all the characteristics of his art is the central representative of the German spirit,—"its combination of the wild and rugged with the homely and the tender, its meditative depth, its enigmatic gloom, its sincerity and energy, its iron diligence and discipline." The range of his powers is shown not only in his works that survive, but in the estimation in which he was held by his contemporaries. When he went to Venice they "praised his beautiful colouring," Bellini honoured him with his friendship, "and he was everywhere treated," so he wrote, "as a gentleman." Raphael sent him some drawings, on one of which this note in Dürer's handwriting may still be seen: "Raphael of Urbino, who has been so highly esteemed by the Pope, drew these naked figures, and sent them to Albrecht Dürer in Nuremberg to show him his hand." He was a writer as well as an artist. "Painting," said Melanchthon, "was the least of his accomplishments"; whilst of his personal qualities Luther bore testimony when he wrote: "As for Dürer, assuredly affection bids us mourn for one who was the best of men.... May he rest in peace with his fathers: Amen!"
He was born at Nuremberg—the son of a goldsmith and the third of eighteen children—and Albert of Nuremberg he remained to the end—the painter of a city distinguished for its "self-restrained, contented, quaint domesticity." His first training was from his father in the goldsmith's trade; next, when fifteen, he was apprenticed for three and a half years to Wohlgemuth, the chief painter of the town; and lastly came his Wanderjahre, a long course of travel and study in foreign lands. In 1494 he settled down at Nuremberg, and there, with the exception of a visit to Venice in 1505-1506 (see p. 190 n.), and to the Netherlands in 1520-1521, he passed the remainder of his life in the busy and honoured exercise of the various branches of his art. He had married, at the age of twenty-three, a well-to-do merchant's daughter. The stories which have long passed current with regard to her being imperious, avaricious, and fretful, have been entirely discredited on closer knowledge of the facts. The marriage was childless, but husband and wife lived throughout on terms both of affection and companionship. As for examples of Dürer's work, the widely-spread prints of the "Knight and Death" and the "Melancholia" give the best idea of his powers of imagination; while in actual specimens of his handiwork in drawing, the British Museum is the second richest collection in the world.
The best commentary on this picture is the description of his father which Dürer wrote in a history of his family:—
"My dear father became a goldsmith, a pure and skilful man. He passed his life in great toil and stern, hard labour, having nothing for his support save what he earned with his hand for himself, his wife, and his children; so that he had little enough. He underwent, moreover, manifold afflictions, trials, and adversities. But he won just praise from all who knew him, for he lived an honourable, Christian life; was a man patient of spirit, mild and peaceable to all, and very thankful towards God. For himself he had little need of company and worldly pleasures: he was also of few words, and was a God-fearing man. This my dear father was very careful with his children to bring them up in the fear of God; for it was his highest wish to train them well that they might be pleasing in the sight both of God and man. Wherefore his daily speech to us was that we should love God and deal truly with our neighbours."
It is just such a man that the painter here sets before us. "The face is pathetic with the deep furrows ploughed in by seventy years of labour and sorrow. Yet as he stands there, so quietly, for his son to paint him, there is just a trace of pleasure and pride lurking in the kind old face" (Conway's Literary Remains of Dürer, p. 35). An inscription on the top of the panel records that it was painted in 1497, when the father was seventy and the son twenty-six. There are three other versions of the picture—at Munich, Frankfort, and Syon House respectively, and the question which is the original has been much disputed. The present picture (exhibited at the Old Masters, 1903) was bought, with No. 1937, for £10,000 from the Marquis of Northampton.