In 1516 Dürer painted a fine portrait of Wohlgemuth, now at Munich, showing a wrinkled old face lit up by bright eyes, and inscribed, “This portrait has Albert Dürer painted after his master Michael Wohlgemuth, in the year 1516, when he was 82 years old; and he lived until the year 1519, when he died, on St. Andrew’s Day, early, before the sun had risen.” About the same period he designed and partly executed the Pietà, which is now in the St. Maurice Gallery at Nuremberg; and carved a Virgin and Child standing on the crescent moon, similar to the one which he had engraved three years before.
In 1518 Dürer also painted the scene of the death-bed of the Empress Mary of Burgundy, under the title of “The Death of the Virgin,” and on the order of Von Zlatko, the Bishop of Vienna. The Emperor Maximilian, Philip of Spain, Bishop Zlatko, and other notables, were shown around the couch. This large and important work was in the sale of the Fries collection in 1822, but cannot now be found, although there is a rumor that it is on the altar of a rural church near St. Wolfgang’s Lake, in Upper Austria.
In 1518 Dürer visited Augsburg, during the session of the Diet of the Empire, and not only sold many of his engravings, but made a number of new sketches and portraits. His most important work on this journey was a portrait of the Emperor, who gave an order on the town of Nuremberg to pay 200 guldens “to the Emperor’s and the Empire’s dear and faithful Albert Dürer.” On this picture the master inscribed, “This is the Emperor Maximilian, whom I, Albert Dürer, drew at Augsburg, in his little room high up in the imperial residence, in the year 1518, on the Monday after St. John the Baptist.” About the same time the master painted the unpleasant picture of “The Suicide of Lucretia,” now at Munich, showing an ill-formed nude woman of life size, said to have been copied from Agnes Frey. The portrait of the witty and learned Lazarus Spengler dates from the same year.
When Maximilian died, the Rath of Nuremberg refused to continue the pension which he had granted to Dürer, though the artist addressed its members as “Provident, Honorable, Wise, Gracious, and Dear Lords,” and enumerated his services to the dead Emperor. He also vainly demanded the payment of the imperial order for 200 florins, “to be paid to him as if to Maximilian himself, out of the town taxes due to the Emperor on St. Martin’s Day,” though he offered to leave his house in pledge, so that the town might lose nothing if the new Emperor refused to acknowledge the validity of the claim.
At the time of the death of Maximilian the great woodcut of “The Triumphal Arch” was unfinished, and the blocks remained in the hands of the engraver. Dürer and Rösch published a large round cut containing twenty-one of the historical scenes, as a memorial of the late sovereign, and this singular production speedily went through four editions. A few trial-impressions of the whole Arch had been struck off before the Emperor’s death, two of which are now at Copenhagen, one in the British Museum, and one at Stockholm. In 1559 the first edition of the entire Arch was printed at Vienna, at the request of the Archduke Ferdinand, and another edition was issued by Bartsch in 1799.
In 1519 Dürer published an excellent wood-engraving of the late Emperor Maximilian, with inscriptions recording his titles and the date of his death. It showed a pleasant face, full of strength and character. Among the painted portraits of Maximilian which are attributed to the master, the best is in the Vienna Belvedere; and another was in the late Northwick Collection, in England. A beautiful portrait in water-colors is in the library of the Erlangen University.
In 1519 Dürer also prepared an exquisitely finished copper-plate engraving of “St. Anthony,” showing the meditative hermit before a background of a quaint mediæval city, very like Nuremberg, abounding in irregular gable-roofs and tall castle-towers. Several admirable copies of this work have been made.