Madonna Haller

Dürer had just come home to Nuremberg from his first trip to Venice, and you can feel Italy in this small Madonna from the later 1490s. The sturdy, almost athletic Christ Child and the calm pyramid of the Virgin's shape come straight from Giovanni Bellini, whose work Dürer had studied in Venice. But the window opening onto a cold, exact Alpine landscape, every surface described with northern precision, is pure Dürer. Look at the lower corners and you'll find two coats of arms. One belongs to the Haller family, patricians of Nuremberg, which is how the picture got its name, and the other marks the Kobergers, who had risen from the craftsman class. This was a private devotional panel for a specific household. It is now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington.