Bondedansen

1507–1528 · Workplace

Nuremberg

1512

Emperor Maximilian I becomes his chief patron

From 1512 Emperor Maximilian I was Dürer's chief patron. For him Dürer and his workshop produced the Triumphal Arch, a giant woodcut 295 × 357 cm printed from 192 blocks and modelled on the triumphal arches of ancient Rome.

1513

Engraves “Knight, Death and the Devil”

The first of Dürer's three most famous engravings, probably inspired by Erasmus's Handbook of a Christian Knight.

1514

Engraves “Melencolia I” with its magic square

With Knight, Death and the Devil and St Jerome in His Study, Melencolia I forms the three “master engravings”. It shows a 4 × 4 “magic square” summing to 34 in every direction, whose two middle numbers in the bottom row give the date, 1514; the meaning of these prints remains a puzzle to this day.

1514

Death of his mother

In the year of Melencolia I and St Jerome in His Study, the artist's mother, Barbara Holper, died.

1515

Makes the “Rhinoceros”

Working from a written description and a sketch by another artist of the animal that had reached Lisbon, Dürer made his woodcut Rhinoceros without ever seeing the beast. The image proved so powerful that it was still used in German school textbooks in the last century.