The city of Nuremberg was a Free Imperial City within the Empire. This meant that the city was autonomous, subject only to the overlordship of the emperor himself. It had no duke or margrave or Prince-Bishop, making it into his own little realm, but rather a city council that would make war and peace and control their own trade, just like other larger states. (Cologne, Basle, Augsburg and Strasbourg were also Free Imperial Cities).
From 1423 the city was granted the right to house the Imperial Regalia, including the emperor’s crown. This was considered a great honour and each year the regalia would be displayed to the public, for one day, from a special viewing gallery.
Nuremburg, with its enormous castle, was also chosen as a frequent site for the Imperial Diet, the deliberative assembly of the Holy Roman Empire. This had no legislative power but allowed for the discussion of important topics with and for the Emperor. The Diet took place in several different cities, including Regensburg and Frankfurt, with probably the best- known meeting taking place in the city of Worms in 1521, where Martin Luther was declared an outlaw. Nuremberg accepted the Protestant Reformation in 1525, with many of its citizens accepting Lutheranism.
Because of its autonomous state Nuremberg could decide for itself how it wanted to conduct trade. After some industrial unrest it outlawed the guild system, which many other towns and cities relied upon, allowing it to become – along with Augsburg – one of the two great trading centres on the route to Italy. Metalwork, scientific research, mechanical invention, and cartography all flourished in the city, alongside a strong literary and humanistic culture. (The city was home to Hans Sachs, Dürer’s contemporary, a master shoemaker who was also a poet and playwright). The first printshop in Europe was opened in Nuremberg in 1470, allowing new ideas and discoveries to be broadcast widely across the Empire and beyond.
Because of its autonomous state Nuremberg could decide for itself how it wanted to conduct trade. After some industrial unrest it outlawed the guild system, which many other towns and cities relied upon, allowing it to become – along with Augsburg – one of the two great trading centres on the route to Italy. Metalwork, scientific research, mechanical invention, and cartography all flourished in the city, alongside a strong literary and humanistic culture. (The city was home to Hans Sachs, Dürer’s contemporary, a master shoemaker who was also a poet and playwright). The first printshop in Europe was opened in Nuremberg in 1470, allowing new ideas and discoveries to be broadcast widely across the Empire and beyond.
It was through printing that Nuremberg’s most famous son, Albrecht Dürer, would become known as one of Europe’s finest and most interesting artists. His woodcuts spread his fame far and wide and when he travelled, he took with him prints to sell or give as gifts. His paintings and prints would become the high point of the city’s culture, alongside elaborate gold and silversmiths work, magnificent suits of parade armour and the beautiful carvings of sculptors such as Veit Stoss and Adam Kraft.
Aims
- Learn about Renaissance Nuremberg and how the city fitted in to patterns of trade within the Holy Roman Empire
- Consider some of the different arts and crafts that were practised in the city
- Learn more about the life and times of Albrecht Dürer
Who’s who?
Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528)
Albrecht Dürer was the most important artist of the German Renaissance. As well as being a painter and printmaker, Dürer was a theoretician, writing books on mathematics, perspective, and proportion. Born and based in Nuremberg, he travelled widely and was much influenced by the art he saw in both Italy and Flanders. He was also fascinated by the nature of the individual, making a number of self-portraits, the earliest when he was only a thirteen-year-old boy.
Hans Sachs (1494–1576)
Hans Sachs was a poet, playwright and singer, but also a shoemaker. Born in Nuremberg he travelled widely as a young man, learning his shoemaking craft in towns such as Regensberg, Salzburg and Lűbeck. As a poet, he spent time at the court of the Emperor Maximilian, in Innsbruck, but returned to Nuremberg in 1516 where he continued to work as a shoemaker. He wrote over 6000 verses, plays and tracts and was a fervent supporter of Martin Luther. He was the leading member of the Nuremberg Meistersinger School (immortalised in Richard Wagner’s opera, Die Meisetersinger von Nurnberg of 1868).
Martin Schongauer (1450/53 –1491)
A native of Alsace, Martin Schongauer lived in Colmar, where he was both a painter and a highly innovative printmaker. He was especially skilled in creating volume using cross-hatching (small lines going in both directions) and in creating harmonious and graceful compositions. He influenced several other artists, especially Albrecht Dürer (who never managed to meet him) and the sculptor Tilman Riemenschneider.
Tilman Riemenschneider (1460– 1531)
Tilman Riemenschneider (1460– 1531)
Riemenschneider was one of the most prolific and versatile sculptors of the German Renaissance. He spent most of his working life in Wurzburg where he became a town councillor and, eventually, mayor. He ran a large workshop, with sometimes as many as forty assistants and became a wealthy man through his flourishing business. Many of his sculptures are created from limewood, which allows for wonderfully detailed carving of drapery, faces and hair. The works also have a deep emotional intensity. Sadly, after he and the other town councillors supported the losing side in the Peasant’s War of 1525, he lost most of his property and lived the last few years of his life in retirement.
• Michael Wolgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, woodcut of Nuremberg from Hartmann Schedel’s Nuremberg Chronicle, published in 1493
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until february 2022
The first major UK exhibition of German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer in nearly 20 years.
Through paintings, drawings, prints, and letters, this exhibition follows Dürer’s travels across Europe, bringing to life the artist himself, and the people and places he visited.
Charting his journeys to the Alps, Italy, Venice and the Netherlands, the exhibition explores how Dürer’s travels sparked an exchange of ideas with Netherlandish and Italian Renaissance artists, fuelled his curiosity and creativity, and increased his fame and influence across Europe.
'Dürer’s Journeys' brings together loans from museums and private collections across the world, including the artist's striking ‘Madonna and Child’ (c. 1496/1499) from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, never before seen in the UK.
Exhibition organised by the National Gallery in partnership with the Suermondt-Ludwig Museum, Aachen
Slide list
• Nuremberg today – views of Durer’s House and the Castle
• Anon, coloured woodcut showing the display of Imperial Regalia on the Heiltumsstuhl, after 1487 (Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg)
• Albrecht Durer, The Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne, 1512/13. Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg
• Anon, a small fountain figure known as ‘Hansel’ c.1380. Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg
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• Anon, The Virgin Mary and St Elizabeth doing their housework, c.1410. Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg
• Adam Kraft, The Sacrament House, St Lorenz Church, Nuremberg, 1493-96
• After Albrecht Dürer, Portrait of the Artist’s Father at 70, 1497. National Gallery, London
• Anon, A covered beaker made in the shape of a town, 1475–90. Victoria & Albert Museum, London
• Albrecht Dürer, Self Portrait at the ages of 13, 1484. Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna
• Albrecht Dürer, Self Portrait at the ages of 22, 1493. Musée du Louvre, Paris
• Albrecht Dürer, Self Portrait at the ages of 26, 1497. Museo del Prado, Madrid
• Albrecht Dürer, Self Portrait in a fur-collared robe, 1500. Alte Pinakothek, Munich
• Albrecht Dürer, detail from The Feast of the Rose Garlands, 1506. National Gallery, Prague
• Albrecht Dürer, A View of Arco, 1495. Musée du Louvre, Paris
• Konrad Witz, The Miraculous Draught of Fishes, 1444. Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Geneva
• Albrecht Dürer, Wing of a Roller, 1512. Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna
• Albrecht Dürer, The Large Turf, 1503. Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna
• Martin Schongauer, Apprentices Fighting, 1485. Fine Arts Museum. San Francisco
• Martin Schongauer, The Crucifixion with four angels, 1475–80. Fine Arts Museum, San
Francisco
• Tilman Riemenschneider, Virgin and Child, c.1520. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
• Veit Stoss, Virgin and Child, c.1495. Victoria & Albert Museum, London
• Martin Schongauer, The Virgin of the Annunciation, 1485-90. Metropolitan Museum of
Art, New York
• Tilman Riemenschneider, The Four Evangelists, 1490-92. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
• Albrecht Dürer, Drawing of a Rhinoceros, 1515. British Museum, London
• Albrecht Dürer, Print of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, 1498. Staatliche
Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe
• Pisanello, The Vision of St Eustace, 1440. National Gallery.
• Albrecht Dürer, Print of The Vision of St Eustace, 1501. Fogg Art Gallery, Harvard
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• Albrecht Dürer, Print of Adam and Eve, 1504. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
• Albrecht Dürer, Print of Knight, Death and the Devil, 1513. Staatliche Kunsthalle,
Karlsruhe
• Albrecht Dürer, Melancholia I, 1514. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
• Albrecht Dürer, St Jerome in the Wilderness, 1495. National Gallery, London
• Albrecht Dürer, St Jerome, 1521. Museum Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon
• Albrecht Dürer, Print of St Jerome in his Study, 1514. Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe
• Albrecht Dürer, Print portrait of Philip Melancthon, 1526. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
• Albrecht Dürer, Print portrait of Erasmus, 1526. National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
• Giovanni Bellini, Madonna and Child, 1480-90. Accadamia Carrara, Bergamo
• Albrecht Dürer, The Haller Madonna, 1498. National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
• Albrecht Dürer, Portrait of Oswald Krel, 1499. Alte Pinakothek, Munich
• Albrecht Dürer, The Paumgartner Altar, 1503, Alte Pinakothek, Munich
• Albrecht Dürer, Christ among the Doctors, 1506. Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
• Albrecht Dürer, Sketch for the Head of Christ, 1506. Graphische Sammlung Albertina,
Vienna
• Giorgione, Laura, 1506. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
• Albrecht Dürer, Portrait of a Woman with her Hair Up, 1497. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
• Albrecht Dürer, Portrait of a Venetian Woman, 1506. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
• Albrecht Dürer, The Adoration of the Trinity, 1511. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
• Raphael, La Disputa, The Disputation of the Holy Sacrament, 1508-11. Vatican Stanze,
Rome
• Matthias Grunewald, The Isenheim Altar, (first, second and third openings), 1511 – 13.
Musée d’Unterlindon, Colmar
• Albrecht Dürer, Portrait of a Young Man, 1521. British Museum. London
• Albrecht Dürer, Portrait of a Man with a Baret and a Scroll, 1521. Museo del Prado,
Madrid
• Albrecht Dürer, Portrait of Hieronymous Holzschuher, 1526. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
• Albrecht Dürer, Portrait of Jakob Fugger, the Wealthy, 1518-20. Staatsgalerie, Augsburg
• Matthaus Schwarz, The office of Jakob Fugger, from the Trachtenbuch, compiled
between 1520 – 1560 • Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig)
• Matthaus Schwarz, Selections from the Trachtenbuch, compiled between 1520–1560.
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig)
• Anon, Hans Sachs, the cobbler poet of Nuremberg, 1574. Private collection
• Albrecht Dürer, The Triumphal Arch of Maximilian I, 1515-17. Braunschweig Museum
• Armour from Nuremberg, Wilhelm von Worms, ‘Maximilian Style’ armour, c.1530 and
Kunz Lochner
• Armour for Archduke Ferdinand, 1549. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
• Peter Floetner and Melchior Baier, The Holzschuher Goblet (made from a Coconut)
c.1530-40. Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg
• Wenzel Jamnitzer, Table ornament, 1549. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
• Nicholas Neufchatel, Portrait of Wenzel Jamnitzer, 1562. Museum of Art, Geneva
• Nikolaus Schmidt, Nautilus Cup, c.1600. Royal Collection, London
• Albrecht Dürer, Four Apostles, 1526. Alte Pinakothek, Munich
• Hans Baldung Grien, The Groom Bewitched, c.1544. National Gallery of Art, Washington
D.C.
• Andrea Mantegna, The Lamentation over the Dead Christ, c.1490. Pinacoteca Brera,
Milan
