Painted by Albrecht Dürer in 1500 at the age of twenty-eight, this frontal self-portrait is among the most audacious self-representations in Western art. Dürer stares out of the picture in rigorous symmetry, long hair falling to his shoulders, one hand pressed to the fur collar of his robe — a composition deliberately borrowed from the Christ Pantocrator iconography of medieval devotional images. The gilded Latin inscription reads 'I, Albrecht Dürer of Nuremberg, portrayed myself in eternal colours at twenty-eight years of age' — a programmatic claim for the artist's near-divine creative authorship. It is a signature work of Munich's Alte Pinakothek.

Exhibition Venue

Pinakothek Museums Munich

Munich, Germany