Lamentation

1496

A commission from Elector Frederick the Wise

Elector Frederick III of Saxony commissioned the Seven Sorrows Polyptych, which Dürer and his assistants executed around 1500.

1498

Creates the “Apocalypse”

His series of 15 woodcuts for the Apocalypse, published by Koberger — an embodiment of end-of-century apocalyptic dread, joining late Gothic language to Renaissance forms — made Dürer famous across Europe.

1498

Paints the Self-Portrait of 1498

For Dürer a painted self-portrait marked a stage of life and asserted his status: in the portrait of 1498 (now in the Prado) he appears as a man above his station, affirming the dignity of painting, still counted a craft in Germany.

1500

Jacopo de' Barbari and the secret of proportion

The Venetian Jacopo de' Barbari, whom Dürer had met in Venice, came to Nuremberg, and Dürer said he learned much from him about perspective, anatomy and proportion. Feeling that de' Barbari would not explain everything he knew, Dürer began studies of his own that became a lifelong preoccupation.