Portrait of the Artist's Mother at the Age of 63
1514 charcoal drawing by Albrecht Dürer / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Portrait of the Artist's Mother at the Age of 63 is the title given to a small March 1514 charcoal drawing by the German printmaker and painter Albrecht Dürer, now in the Kupferstichkabinett museum in Berlin. The portrait is a tender but unflinching physical study of his mother, Barbara Holper (c. 1451–1514), completed two months before she died.[1][2] Dürer was close to her, and after her death wrote that she had "died hard" and that "I felt so grieved for her that I cannot express it".[3]
Portrait of the Artist's Mother at the Age of 63 | |
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Artist | Albrecht Dürer |
Year | 1514 |
Medium | charcoal |
Location | Kupferstichkabinett Berlin, Berlin |
In its bleakness, the drawing has been compared to his two great 1514 engravings, Melencolia I and Madonna by the Wall. It is Durer's second portrait of her; his c. 1490 oil on oak panel painting now in Nuremberg is today generally accepted to be either an original or a copy of a lost portrait of her. The drawing was bought in c. 1877 by the Kupferstichkabinett from the Firmin-Didot auction house in Paris during a period of acquisition of over 35 Dürer drawings by the gallery.[4][5]