Autoportrait

Dürer painted himself here in 1498, at 26, just back from his first trip over the Alps to Italy. That journey is the key to the picture. In Germany a painter was still treated as a tradesman, a craftsman in a workshop, but in Italy Dürer had met artists received as gentlemen and scholars, and he came home determined to be seen that way. So he shows himself not with brushes but as an elegant young man, hair carefully curled, fine grey kidskin gloves on his hands, dressed for society rather than work. Through the window on the right is a stretch of mountain landscape from the very Alpine crossing that changed how he wanted the world to look at him.