Portrait Diptych of Dürer's Parents

In 1490 the young Albrecht Dürer had just finished his apprenticeship in Nuremberg and was about to leave on the years of travel expected of every German craftsman. Before going he painted his parents, and this portrait of his father is his earliest surviving oil, made when he was 18. Albrecht Dürer the Elder was a goldsmith in his sixties here, and his son shows him holding a small rosary, the skin around the eyes and mouth already worn. The two panels were meant to hang together as a matched pair, husband and wife turned toward each other. They have been separated since at least 1628. The father's portrait stayed here in Florence, while the mother's now hangs in Nuremberg, the city where both were first painted.