San Marino · 550th birthday of Albrecht Dürer

Albrecht Dürer was born in Nuremberg (Nürnberg) in 1471 and died there in 1528. He was a painter, draughtsman, printmaker and art theorist. After training in the workshop of the Nuremberg painter Michael Wolgemut, he undertook journeys, including to Italy and the Netherlands. There he engaged with the art of the Italian Renaissance as well as the traditions of Northern European painting.

Dürer’s woodcuts and engravings were particularly widely circulated. Prints could be produced in multiple copies and traded over long distances. As a result, works such as the woodcut series „Apokalypse“ and the engravings „Ritter, Tod und Teufel“, „Melencolia I“ and „Der heilige Hieronymus im Gehäus“ became known throughout Europe. Dürer marked many works with his sign, consisting of the interlocking letters A and D. This served to identify his authorship and developed into an early recognisable artist’s mark.

In addition to religious depictions, Dürer created portraits and self-portraits. He also wrote about perspective, human proportions, geometry and the theory of fortification. His works demonstrate an attempt to combine precise observation of nature with mathematical rules of pictorial composition. In this way, he also participated in the exchange between the artistic traditions north and south of the Alps.

The Virgin Mary with the Christ Child is one of the most frequent subjects in Christian art. Such depictions could serve both ecclesiastical and private devotion. In Dürer’s work, the traditional religious motif is combined with precise rendering of the figures and a spatial and physical depiction oriented towards the Renaissance.

No direct biographical connection between Dürer and San Marino is apparent. Rather, the issue is connected with the practice of the small state of commemorating anniversaries of artists and other figures from European cultural history on collector coins. The round anniversary provided the specific occasion.