Self-portrait of Albrecht Dürer

Durer never sat for this panel. It is a copy, made in Italy probably in the middle of the 17th century, of the self-portrait Albrecht Durer painted of himself in 1498, the one that now hangs in the Prado in Madrid. In that original Durer showed himself at 26 as an elegant gentleman, gloved, with an Alpine view through the window, a German craftsman presenting himself with the ease of an Italian courtier. The Uffizi took this version into its gallery of artists' self-portraits, the collection the Medici began assembling in the 17th century. Durer belonged in that company as the northern painter who, more than almost anyone before him, made his own face a serious subject. Since no self-portrait from his own hand could be had, a copy of the Madrid picture stood in for him.