德累斯顿祭坛画

Durer was still in his mid-twenties in 1496, freshly back from a first trip over the Alps to Italy, when Frederick the Wise, the Elector of Saxony, passed through Nuremberg and gave him one of his earliest important commissions. This was it, a small altar for the chapel of the elector's castle at Wittenberg. At first it was just the central panel, the Virgin quietly adoring the child. The two side wings came later, around 1503, and they carry a clue to why. They show Saint Sebastian and Saint Anthony, both saints called on against disease, added most likely in the wake of a plague. It is painted in tempera on canvas rather than the usual oak panel. Some of the finish is uneven enough that scholars still argue over how much of the wings Durer painted himself.