Portrait of Emperor Maximilian I
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The ''Portrait of Emperor Maximilian I'' is an
oil painting Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...
by
Albrecht Dürer Albrecht Dürer (; ; hu, Ajtósi Adalbert; 21 May 1471 – 6 April 1528),Müller, Peter O. (1993) ''Substantiv-Derivation in Den Schriften Albrecht Dürers'', Walter de Gruyter. . sometimes spelled in English as Durer (without an umlaut) or Due ...
, dating to 1519 and now at the
Kunsthistorisches Museum The Kunsthistorisches Museum ( "Museum of Art History", often referred to as the "Museum of Fine Arts") is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on the Vienna Ring Road, it is crowned with an octagonal do ...
of
Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...
,
Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
. It portrays the emperor
Maximilian I Maximilian I may refer to: *Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, reigned 1486/93–1519 *Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria, reigned 1597–1651 *Maximilian I, Prince of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen (1636-1689) *Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria, reigned 1795†...
.


History

In the Spring of 1512, the newly elected emperor Maximilian I of Habsburg sojourned in
Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...
, where he got acquainted with Dürer. To celebrate the emperor and his house, the artist conceived the large ''Triumphal Arch'' woodcut, for which he was rewarded with 100 yearly
florins The Florentine florin was a gold coin struck from 1252 to 1533 with no significant change in its design or metal content standard during that time. It had 54 grains (3.499 grams, 0.113 troy ounce) of nominally pure or 'fine' gold with a purcha ...
. In 1518, during the
Diet of Augsburg The Diet of Augsburg were the meetings of the Imperial Diet of the Holy Roman Empire held in the German city of Augsburg. Both an Imperial City and the residence of the Augsburg prince-bishops, the town had hosted the Estates in many such sess ...
, Maximilian called Dürer to portray him. The artist met the emperor in the castle and made a pencil drawing of him, from which he later painted the panel portrait. On the drawing's margin, he noted: "Is the emperor Maximilian that I Albrecht Dürer portrayed in Augsburg, up in the high palace, in his small room, Monday 28 June 1518". The oil panel was completed when the emperor had already died, with some variants from the initial drawing. The latter is now housed in the Albertina, Vienna.


Description

The emperor is portrayed from three-quarter on a green background. The arms lie on an unseen parapet coinciding with the lower boundary of the painting, according to the Flemish painting tradition. His left hand holds a large pomegranate (his personal symbol), a symbol of cohesion in diversity and thus of the
Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire was a Polity, political entity in Western Europe, Western, Central Europe, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, dissolution i ...
(the grains representing his subjects). According to Stabius's explanation on the ''Arch of Honour'', the symbolism behind the pomegranate is like this, "although a pomegranate's exterior is neither very beautiful nor endowed with a pleasant scent, it is sweet on the inside and is filled with a great many well-shaped seeds. Likewise the Emperor is endowed with many hidden qualities which became more and more apparent each day and continue to bear fruit." Maximilian wears a gown with a very wide fur collar and a broad-brimmed dark hat, with a brooch in the center. His grey hair crown his aged (Maximilian was 59 at the time) but still aristocratic face. In the upper left is the Habsburg coat of arms and Golden Fleece chain, near a long inscription in capital characters which gives the titles and the deeds of the emperor.


Comparation with related works of Albrecht Dürer

Katherine Crawford Luber compares the more famous Vienna painting, likely a commission from Maximilian himself, with the Nuremberg version, possibly a processional banner created for the coronation of Charles V. The Nuremberg shows a younger Maximilian with more emphasized symbols of Office and Rule (whereas the Vienna painting does not even show the
Order of the Golden Fleece The Distinguished Order of the Golden Fleece ( es, Insigne Orden del Toisón de Oro, german: Orden vom Goldenen Vlies) is a Catholic order of chivalry founded in Bruges by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, in 1430, to celebrate his marriage ...
). He is presented in half-length with his hands in a hieratic, axial position. The intimate meeting with Maximilian "high up in the palace in his tiny little cabinet" seemed to leave an impression on Dürer. Luber opines that the woodcut ''The draughtsman drawing a portrait'' he produced later reflected this meeting. The man enthroned was cradling an orb just like Maximilian was holding his pomegranate. Luber writes:
The significance of Dürer’s Maximilian portraits cannot be divined from their surface appearances alone. An understanding of how Dürer made the versions, repeating a single image, but disguising the repetitions, his crucial to interpretation of the portraits. Dürer’s ability to synthesize the representational, political, and anagogical aspects of portraiture in a single series of productions bears further testimony to his creative genius. In this unique group of portraits — drawing, woodcut, and two paintings – equivalence and variation converge within an unchanging structure as Dürer reveals and masters the complex task of Imperial portraiture.


See also

*
List of paintings by Albrecht Dürer The following is an incomplete list of paintings by the German painter and engraver Albrecht Dürer. See also * List of engravings by Albrecht Dürer The following is a very incomplete list of engravings by the German painter and engraver Al ...


References


Sources

*


External links


Page at the museum's website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Portrait of Emperor Maximilian I Portraits by Albrecht Dürer 1519 paintings Paintings in the Kunsthistorisches Museum 16th-century portraits Cultural depictions of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor