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Second Trip to Italy, 1505-1507
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In the autumn of 1505, Durer left his city as he had eleven years
before, because of a plague epidemic. Without delay, he set out for
his beloved Venice. The most important work that he painted during
this second sojourn in the Serenissima was the Feast of the Rose
Garlands, an altarpiece that won admiration and enthusiasm
even from the Venetian artists who previously had seriously opposed
him, criticizing his method of using color. Even the doge Lorenzo Loredan and the patriarch Antonio Suriano wanted to see his work and
went to his workshop. It is said that the doge offered Durer a
salary of 200 florins per year to stay in Venice. Durer felt at ease
in Venice, since he enjoyed much more consideration there than at
home. It is worth remembering that artists in Italy represented a
class unto themselves—good or bad—while in the same period in
Germany, an artist was always part of, however much respected, the
artisan world. Durer writes: "Oh, how much more I will endure the
cold, breathing this sun! Here I feel like a gentleman; at home I am
a parasite."
The following event, related by Joachim Camerarius in the preface to
the edition of books on human proportion of 1532, demonstrates how
much the Venetian painters must have admired the refined technique
of Durer's painting: It seems that one day, Giovanni Bellini begged
Durer to lend him one of his brushes for painting hair and, to his
great surprise, Durer handed over some brushes that were identical
to his own.
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Portrait of a Young Venetian Woman
1505
Vienna, Kunslhistorischcs Museum
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Portrait of a Young Venetian Woman
In the late eighteenth century, this panel was part of the
collection of the mayor Danzica Schwartz, but in 1 790 it was
auctioned off by the wife of Schwartz's brother; in the early
twentieth century, we find it in the Wancowicz collection in
Lithuania. The portrait was then acquired from a private collection
by the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna, where it can still be
found today. According to Schutz (1994), it represents one of the
more important acquisitions made by the museum in the last hundred
years.
The portrait is one of the first works of the artist during his
second sojourn in Venice. It was painted in the autumn or in the
winter of 1505. It was Fedja Anzelewsky (1971) who recognized the
hairstyle of the young woman and the hairnet that covers it as
typically Venetian, whereas the fashion of the clothing has been
defined as typically Milanese by Weixelgartner (1927), Tietze (1937)
and Panofsky (1948). From the portraits, an extraordinary charm
emanates, which cannot be merely attributable to the shades of brown
and gold of the hairdo and clothing, which are set apart from the
uniform black background, it is really the beauty of the portrait
that fascinates in its entirety and in its variety of details. It is
the slight wave of the hair on the clear, high forehead that
imperceivably becomes curls caressing the girl's cheeks. It is the
dreamy gaze that shows, under the slightly lowered eyelids, the
radiant, black eyes. It highlights the play of light on the forehead
and on the cheeks. It is the candor of this face, of the neck and
chest, emphasized by a neckline of a contrasting color, that evoke
the image of the ideal purity of a girl. With great ability, the
artist includes in this image a long and pronounced nose and large,
sensual lips, immersing the whole figure in a light that reveals the
important influence of the Venetian school, and, in particular, that
of Giovanni Bellini.
With reference to some of the details, it has been repeatedly made
known that the portrait is unfinished. It is probable that Durer
deliberately did not give the same intensity to the left ribbon as
to the right: on the one hand, so as to not overwhelm the charm of
the dark eyes; on the other, so as to support the subtle chromatic
effect of the bodice that, from the design of the gold ribbons,
contributes to the overall charm of the painting.
This charm is also shown in the movement in the double rows of
pearls, interrupted by the darker shapes of doubled cones, making
the pendant curve slightly from the neck. Among Durer's works, there
is not a more beautiful portrait of a woman. Indeed, it has led one
to think that there was a rather intimate relationship between the
artist and the model. Some see the woman as a courtesan (Gluck,
1933); others define her as an "instinctive, languorous, and melting
beauty" (Winkler, 1957).
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Portrait of a Venetian Woman
The Berlin museums acquired this panel on the antique market in
London in 1893. Beforehand, it was in the Reginald Cholmondely
collection.
The painting is poorly conserved. Almost all the final layers of
color are missing. The eyes have been restored (Anzelewsky, 1991).
Because of the absence of the topmost layer of color, the painting
has acquired a soft chromatic shading. Even if we know that Durer
executed it during his second sojourn in Italy, probably in the
autumn of 1506 after the Feast of the Rose Garlands,
workmanship seems particularly "Venetian." The refinement of the
artist is clearly absent in the sketching of the hair (compare Portrait of a Young Venetian Woman). Some object is
discernible in the curl hanging to the left.
Only a few traces of the hairnet have been preserved, and the sky
blue of the background, which is inexplicably divided into two
sections, is probably no longer its original shade. In its original
state, however, this half-bust must have been in the Venetian style,
because of her full, soft shapes, delicately modeled with a measured
use of light. We must count this painting among the most beautiful
works Durer produced during his second sojourn in Venice.
The various attempts to identify the model—for example, as Agnes
Durer, because of the letters AD on the trimming of the clothes or
the woman with her head turned in the middle right of the Feast of
the Rose Garlands—have not held up to criticism. The
letters are probably the initials of a motto.
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Portrait of a Venetian Woman
1506-07
Staatliche Museen, Berlin
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Feast of the Rose Garlands
1506
National Gallery, Prague
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Feast of the Rose Garlands (detail)
1506
National Gallery, Prague
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Feast of the Rose Garlands (detail)
1506
National Gallery, Prague
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Feast of the Rose Garlands
This panel was painted for an altar for the German community in
Venice, in the church of S. Bartolomeo near the Fondaco dei
Tedeschi, the social and commercial center of the German colony,
where it remained until 1606. It was then acquired, after many
negotiations, for 900 ducats by Emperor Rudolph II According to
Sandrart (1675), four men were hired to bring the packaged painting
to the emperor's residence in Prague.
Stationed elsewhere during the invasion of the Swedish troops, the
painting, already very damaged, returned to its place in 1635. It
underwent a first restoration in 1662. In 1782, it was sold in an
auction for one florin. After having passed through the hands of
various collectors, it was acquired by the Czechoslovakian state in
1930.
The painting, severely damaged chiefly in the center portion, from
the head of the Madonna and continuing downward to the bottom, was
clumsily restored in the nineteenth century; in this restoration,
the upper side portion, left of the canopy and to Saint Dominic's
head, was also included. Three copies of the work are
known: one—considered the most important and which now belongs to a
private collection—is attributed to Hans Rottenhamer, who sojourned
in Venice from 1596 to 1606, where he took care of many acquisitions
on behalf of Rudolph II; another is in Vienna; and the third, a
rather modified version of the original, is in Lyon (Anzelewsky,
1991).
The preparatory work of the panel occupied the artist for a long
time, from 7 February until the last half of April in 1506. It
consists of twenty-one preparatory drawings, executed chiefly in pen
and ink on azure paper, according to the Venetian tradition; others
are drawings of various characters, in the dimensions then adopted
for the painting (W 380-401). In a letter dated 25 September,
addressed to Willibald Pirckheimer, the artist communicates the
completion of the work. (Rupprich, 1956-69, I). It seems that the
Confraternity of the Blessed Rosary was officially recognized by the
Venetian authorities in 1506, that is, in the year Durer carried out
the painting. In comparing his panel with the woodcut to the writing
of Jakob Sprenger about the foundation of the same Confraternity,
having appeared in Augsburg in 1476,
suggests that it was well known to him. All this implies—even if no
document exists to prove it, and none of the names of the members
are known—that the painting was ordered by the same Confraternity.
On the whole, the majority of the figures in the painting have not
been identified. The exceptions to this include the self-portrait of
the artist; the portrait of Emperor Maximilian I; the one of the
architect Hieronymus of Augsburg, engineer of the new Fondaco dei
Tedeschi (1505-8) after it was completely destroyed in a fire, and
who is recognizable in the far right by the square he holds; and
Burckhard from the city Speyer, identified as the fourth figure
form the left (see Portrait of Burkard von Speyer). Saint Dominic is clearly the
saint whom we see to the left of the Madonna, since the institution
of the rosary is attributed to him. For all the others, many names
have been proposed. For example, the more recent attribution of
Strieder (1989) and Anzelewsky (1991), maintain that the highly
characterized figure that appears just behind the emperor bears a
resemblance to a representative of the Fugger house (see Jakob
Fugger, the Wealthy),
a powerful family of the sixteenth century, who obviously shared
in the financing of the work. In fact, when Rudolph II acquired it,
he sought their consent. However, the identification, especially of
a specific person, is still uncertain. The Madonna is enthroned in a
field, beneath a green canopy that cherubs hold up with ribbons.
Other cherubs on little clouds hold a crown of precious stones
suspended above her head. At her feet kneel the pope and the
emperor, on the left and right, having placed before themselves a
tiara and a crown, respectively. And while the Madonna places a
garland of roses on the head of the emperor, the Blessed Child
places an identical one over the head of the pontifice. Saint
Dominic, in turn, crowns a bishop. Behind the pope and the emperor,
the patrons are arranged symmetrically, some of whom, in both parts
of the background, divert their gaze from the Madonna. Other
Bellinian cherubs descend upon them with rose garlands. In the
center of the painting, seated in front of the throne, an angel
playing a lute recalls the angels playing at the feet of the
enthroned Madonna in Giovanni Bellini's paintings. These details
aside, the setting of the work is typically Venetian, (Panofsky
1977). The rigidly pyramidal composition of the painting is not
Venetian. This painting has indicated that Durer was one to have
been of the first who created such composition (Erika and Hans
Tietze, 1937-38).
The Feast of the Rose Garlands is undoubtedly the most important
work that Durer created during his sojourn in Venice and was the
work that ushered in the Renaissance. Durer was obviously aware of
this, as his letters and the painting itself demonstrate. The
painting shows this in the distinction he gives his self-portrait:
in the top right, in front of the typically German landscape passage
at the foot of the mountains, with his face framed by long blond
hair, donning luxurious clothes—even a precious fur cloak, in spite
of the warm season—so as to be noticed among the other characters.
He alone has ostentatiously turned his gaze to the spectator. Even
the writing on the paper he holds is unusual for Italy. It indicates
not only the time of production (five months), but next to his own
name is the indication germanus. This detail was to distinguish
himself from his Venetian colleagues, who evidently held him in very
high regard, since even the doge and the patriarch came to his
workshop to admire his work.
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Portrait of Burkard von Speyer
This painting was present in the collection of Charles 1 of England.
A comparison of the subject of this painting with that of a
miniature dated 1506, located in the Schlossmuseum of Weimar and
with its subject identified as Burkhard von Speyer, confirms that
the portrayal is of the same person. This same person is
recognizable, within a reasonable margin of probability, in the
figure who, in the Feast of the Rose Garlands, is seen on
the left, directly behind the young cardinal. This suggests that Burkhard, a relatively unknown figure, was part of the Venetian
German community. Like the Portrait of a Youtg Man, this
portrait was executed during Durer's second sojourn in Venice,
between 23 September and 23 October 1506. The face in this portrait,
as in the other, painted in clear pink shades, occupies almost the
entire space of the painting. Even the dimensions of the two
paintings are identical. It is Bellinian; even the beret is probably
from Venetian fashion. Durer has captured the head from a position
lower than the subject. The perspective from such an angle causes
the very pronounced chin, mouth, and nose to occupy most of the
face, leaving a fairly narrow and sunken space for the relatively
small, slightly different from each other, light-colored eyes in the
upper portion of the face. The resulting contrast, between
physiognomy and gaze, confers a deeply pensive look to the portrait.
The fine, light red hair, depicted very carefully, as usual, is
somewhat darker than the face it frames. The light that originates
from the left highlights the contrast in the colors of the head and
the attire: the white of the shirt, the red of the garment over the
shoulders, the light shade of the trim of the fur, the black of the
two ribbons crossing in front. Despite the limits of the space, the
result is a suggestive and serene image, typical of his second
sojourn in Venice.
The height of this portrait, as of the one of Vienna (see
Portrait of a Young Venetian Woman), so it gets numbered, with the
portraits of the Tucher family, among the "portable" family portraits.
The reduced dimensions were perhaps chosen because they would
facilitate transportation, an important consideration to the
subject, who was painted during his temporary sojourn in Venice.
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Portrait of Burkard von Speyer
1506
Royal Collection, Windsor
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Portrait of a Young Man
The restoration carried out of after the Second World War involved
the removal of the opaque varnish that protected this painting and
revealed it to be much better preserved than was previously thought.
Nevertheless, the face is not finished (Anzelewsky, 1991), and it
appears slightly flat, despite the vivaciousness of the eyes. The
contrast of the colors of the clothing and beret (charcoal and
black, respectively) against the green background elicits a
remarkable effect. So does the gentle depiction of the face framed
by soft, chestnut hair. The portrait, which can be considered
typical of the era, according to Anzelewsky, can be dated
accurately: a letter that Durer sent at that time from Venice to
Willibald Pirckheimer (Rupprich, 1956-59) makes clear that it must
have been carried out between 23 September 1506, and 23 October
1506, that is, after the Feast of the Rose Garlands and
before the Madonna with the Siskin.
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Portrait of a Young Man
1506
Palazzo Rosso, Genoa
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In Venice, in addition to the important commission by the German
merchants for the altarpiece the Feast of the Rose Garlands, Durer
had many other commissions—above all, portraits of Italian and
German personages. We know that he managed to sell the six works
that he had brought with him from Nuremberg. One work that was
probably not painted on commission was the Madonna with the Siskin, which he brought back with him to Nuremberg.
Vasari tells us that, during his Venetian sojourn, Durer wanted to
denounce to the city's law court the Bolognese engraver Marcantonio
Raimondi, an artist who—it should not be forgotten—contributed, by
the spread of his own engravings, much to the reception of Raphael's
works. The accusation was that he had copied Durer's works and
signed them with the famous monogram. It should be remembered that
Durer's idea to embed his initials, one inside the other, was a big
success and was adopted by German painters such as Altdorfer and
Aldegrever. This is one of the first trials defending the rights of
the author. It seems that the denunciation had an effect. Though,
even without Raimondi's contribution, Durer's graphic work was
renowned and recognized throughout Italy. That Vasari knew him and
that most Italian artists, including Vasari himself, drew on his
work for their own themes, surely proves his fame throughout Italy.
The second sojourn in Venice was very important to the artist,
especially in establishing his character and his artistic
personality. A detailed chronicle remains from this period in the
many interesting letters that he wrote to his friend Willibald
Pirckheimer, who wanted to be, in addition to other matters,
informed about his acquisitions, which Durer looked after, of
Oriental rugs, precious gems, original editions of Greek books, and
other items.
From Venice, Durer went by horseback to Bologna, where he was
welcomed triumphantly as a "second Apelles." His friend Christoph
Scheurl, a humanist and judge in Nuremberg, who attended his
graduation at that university, introduced him to some Bolognese
artists. He did not, unfortunately, have a chance to meet Luca
Pacioli, whom Durer had wanted to meet so as to develop his ideas on
the laws of central perspective. The famous mathematician, however,
had moved to Florence.
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Madonna with the Siskin 1506 Staatliche Museen, Berlin
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Madonna with the Siskin
(detail) 1506 Staatliche Museen, Berlin
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Madonna with the Siskin
(detail) 1506 Staatliche Museen, Berlin
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Madonna with the Siskin
(detail) 1506 Staatliche Museen, Berlin
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Madonna with the Siskin
In the second half of the sixteenth century, this painting was in
Nuremberg; in 1 600, it was part of the collection of Rudolph II, as
Carel von Mander notes (1617).
In the 1860s, it reappeared and became the property of the marquis
of Lothian of Edinburgh, from whom the Berlin museum acquired it in
1893. In a letter of 23 September 1 506 from Venice addressed to
Willibald Pirckheimer, in which Durer writes that he has completed
the Feast of the Rose Garlands, he also speaks of having
just finished another painting. It would most likely be the Madonna
with the Siskin (Arnolds, 1959), which the artist brought back to
Nuremberg with him.
It is astonishing that Durer does not mention any patrons for this
large painting, full of iconographical references. He created it
simply by drawing on his own culture and experience. The work is
conceived following the dictates of Venetian painting: a monumental
Madonna, with the red gown covered by an azure cloak, who sits
enthroned before a curtain that is also red, in a landscape pervaded
by an especially clear light.
A Florentine trademark is represented in the presence of Saint John,
even if this detail was also rather common in the Venetian painting
by this time (Panofsky, 1955). The Madonna's rapt gaze is directed
slightly off to the side, while her right hand rests on the Old
Testament, in which is prophesied the birth of the new king. She
almost unconsciously accepts a lily of the valley (convallaris majalis)
from Saint John with her other hand. It is the flower symbolic of
the Immaculate Conception and the Incarnation of Christ (Levi
d'Ancona, The Garden of the Renaissance, 1977). The small saint,
however, does not look at her; his gaze is directed to Jesus, whose
divine nature Saint John is the first to recognize.
The infant Jesus is seated in his mother's lap on a rich red
cushion. With his right hand, he elegantly lifts a sort of soother—a
tiny pouch, apparently filled with poppy seeds, on which babies
would suck and be calmed. His left hand, which holds the edge of his
little shirt, probably just unfastened (see the open clasp), comes
toward his face. In the preparatory drawing (W 408), Durer had
represented him with a more solemn expression, while he raised the
cross staff; but perhaps in changing the staff, the symbol of the
Passion, with the poppy-seed soother—poppy seeds symbolic of sleep
and death, if this is actually what it contains—the artist wanted to
preserve the childlike manner of the infant Jesus, without altering
the symbolism.
The siskin—in the place of the goldfinch—perched on his arm points
his beak toward his head, where one day the crown of thorns will be;
the child smiles affectionately at Saint John below him, to whom a
little angel, with a meaningful eaze, is holding the cross staff out
to him, though the saint and child do not take notice. To the ruins
represented in perspective on the left corresponds a tree in bloom
growing from a fallen trunk on the right.
The former is a symbol of the fall of the Old Covenant, or perhaps
an image of the ruins of David's palace, where, according to the
legend, the nativity stable stood. The latter is a sign of life and
of the New Covenant. Two cherubs crown the Madonna with a garland of
vine shoots of roses, in which are woven a white rose, symbol of her
joy, and two red roses, symbol of her sufferings.
Durer's main accomplishment in this painting is in the perfect
combination of form and content. Each of the characters expresses
his or her own emotion, yet everyone together is composed in a
convincing, unified story, the symbols included.
Unfortunately, the poor state of preservation greatly disturbs the
impression of overall harmony that characterizes the panel.
This can be appreciated thoroughly in another painting found in the
same museum, the tondo Terranuova Madonna, the brilliant and nearly
contemporary work of Raphael.
About ten years later, Titian captures the Saint John of this
painting in his Madonna with the Cherries, at the Kunsthistorisches
Museum in Vienna. He takes up again the soft depiction of the hair
and veil that covers his shoulders, and changes only slightly the
position of the arm (Tietze, 1937; Panofsky, 1959).
This suggests that he had seen and appreciated Durer's work during
its painting in his Venetian workshop.
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