Self Portrait by Albrecht Durer 1493 Postcard

Self Portrait by Albrecht Dürer, 1493, depicts the painter as a well-dressed, handsome and enigmatic young man in his early twenties. Painted in tempera and oil on wood panel, the portrait presents the young artist as a forward looking, archetypal “Renaissance man”. Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) was a German painter of the Northern Renaissance whose work as an engraver, printmaker, mathematician and theorist secured his reputation as one of the greatest artists of Europe. His many paintings, portraits, altarpieces, watercolors, and engravings were the first in the Northern Renaissance to use classical motifs from antiquity and the Italian Renaissance. Dürer’s unparalleled skill in drawing and engraving as well as mastery of perspective allowed him rapid execution of a range of motifs which elicit universal admiration to this day.