“And when the three years were out, my father sent me away. I remained abroad four years, when he recalled me; and, as I had left just after Easter in 1490, I returned home in 1494 just after Whitsuntide.” Thus Albert describes the close of his Lehr-jahre, or labor-years, and the entrance upon his Wander-jahre, or travel-years. According to a German custom, still prevalent in a modified degree, the youth was obliged to travel for a long period, and study and practise his trade or profession in other cities, before settling for life as a master-workman. Unfortunately all that Dürer records as to these eventful four years is given in the sentences above; and we can only theorize as to the places which he visited, and his studies of the older art-treasures of Europe. Some authors believe that a part of the Wander-jahre was spent in Italy, and Dr. Thausing, Dürer’s latest and best biographer, clearly proves this theory by a close study of his notes and sketches. Others claim with equal positiveness, and less capability of proof, that they were devoted to the Low Countries. It is certain that he abode at Colmar in 1492, where he was honorably received by Gaspar, Paul, and Louis, the three brothers of Martin Schongauer. The great Martin had died some years before; but many of his best paintings were preserved at Colmar, and were carefully studied by Dürer. At a later day he wandered through the Rhineland to Basle, and spent his last year at Strasbourg. His portraits of his master and mistress in the latter city were dated in 1494, and pertained to the Imhoff Collection.
His portrait painted by himself in 1493 was procured at Rome by the Hofrath Beireis, and described by Goethe. It shows a bright and vigorous face, full of youthful earnestness and joy, rich, harmonious, and finely executed, though thinly colored. He is attired in a blue-gray cloak with yellow strings, an embroidered shirt whose sleeves are bound with peach-colored ribbons, and a purple cap; and holds a piece of the blue flower called Manns-treue, or Man’s-faith.
CHAPTER II.
Dürer marries Agnes Frey.—Her Character.—Early Engravings.—Portraits.—“The Apocalypse.”—Death of Dürer’s Father.—Drawings.
“And when my Wander-jahre was over, Hans Frey treated with my father, and gave me his daughter, by name the Jungfrau Agnes, with a dowry of 200 guldens. Our wedding was held on the Monday before St. Margaret’s Day (in July), in the year 1494.” This dry statement of the most important event of the artist’s life illustrates the ancient German custom of betrothal, where the bond of wedlock was considered as a matter-of-fact copartnership, with inalienable rights and duties, devoid of sentiment or romance. Since the relatives of the contracting parties were closely affected by such transactions, they usually managed the negotiations themselves; and the young people, thus thrown by their parents at each other’s heads, were expected to, and usually did, accept the situation with submissiveness and prudent obedience. In this case it appears that the first overtures came from the family of the lady; and perhaps the order for Albert to return from his wanderings was issued for this reason. Hans Frey was a burgher with large possessions in Nuremberg and the adjacent country; and his daughter was a very beautiful maiden. Her future husband does not appear to have seen her until the betrothal was made.
Most of Dürer’s biographers have dwelt at great length on the malign influence which Agnes exercised upon his life, representing her as a jealous virago, imbittering the existence of the noble artist. But Dr. Thausing, in his new and exhaustive history of Dürer’s life, vindicates the lady from this evil charge; and his position is carefully reviewed and sustained by Eugéne Müntz. He points out the fact that the long story of Agnes’s uncongeniality rests solely on Pirkheimer’s letter, and then shows that that ponderous burgher had reasons for personal hostility to her. The unbroken silence which Dürer preserves as to home-troubles, throughout his numerous letters and journals, is held as proof against the charges; and none of his intimate friends and contemporaries (save Pirkheimer) allude to his domestic trials, though they wrote so much about him. The accusation of avarice on her part is combated by several facts, among which is the cardinal one of her self-sacrificing generosity to the Dürer family after her husband’s death, and the remarkable record of her transferring to the endowment of the Protestant University of Wittenberg the thousand florins which Albert had placed in the hands of the Rath for her support. Pirkheimer’s acrimonious letter (see p. [142]) gives her credit at least for virtue and piety; and perhaps we may regard her aversion to the doughty writer as a point in her favor.
It is a singular and unexplained fact, that although Dürer was accustomed to sketch every one about him, yet no portrait of his wife is certainly known to exist, though several of his sketches are so called, without any foundation or proof. What adds to the strangeness of this omission is the fact that all accounts represent Agnes Dürer as a very handsome woman.
Probably the newly married couple dwelt at the house of the elder Dürer during the first years of their union. In 1494 Albert was admitted to the guild of painters, submitting a pen-drawing of Orpheus and the Bacchantes as his test of ability; and at about the same time he drew the “Bacchanal” and “The Battle of the Tritons,” which are now at Vienna. Herein he showed the contemporary classical tendency of art, which he so soon outgrew. About this same time he designed a frontispiece for the Latin poem which Dr. Ulsen had written about the pestilence which was devastating Nuremberg, showing a ghastly and repulsive man covered with plague-boils. The portrait of Dürer’s father, in oil-colors, which is now at Frankfort, was also executed during this year.