Albrecht Dürer was born on May 21, 1471, in Nuremberg, Germany. His father Albrecht Dürer the elder, a goldsmith of lower-middle-class income, sent him to attend Latin school at St. Lorenz. Later Dürer served as an apprentice to his father. Right before becoming an apprentice of the painter Michael Wolgemut, in 1484, he completed some of his earliest work at around the age of 13, which was one of his self -portrait series. In 1494 Dürer increased social standing as a result of his arranged marriage to the daughter of a prosperous machine and instrument maker.
             Albrecht Dürer was so great an artist, so searching and all-encompassing a thinker, that he was almost a Renaissance in his own right. Dürer was exceptionally learned, and the only northern artist who fully absorbed the sophisticated Italian dialogues between scientific theory and art. He also rejected the Gothic art and philosophy of Germany's past, becoming the first great Protestant painter. 1494 was also the year he visited Venice to learn about the new Renaissance philosophy and art techniques. In Venice, Dürer had made drawings of exotic figures and animals and had done many nature studies. There he met Jacopo de'Barbari, whose figures, constructed according to geometrical methods, inspired Dürer to a lifelong study of human proportions. In 1495 he set himself in his own workshop, working mostly as a draftsman doing wood- and copper- engraving, but also making altarpieces. Dürer personally undertook all aspects of production design, cutting, printing, and publishing. He used the medium of engraving for subjects that reflected his theoretical interests and used other mediums of drawing for his more intimate works, such as, portraits of family, friends, and patrons.
             Dürer's portrait of his mother, a charcoal drawing made in 1514, is one of many portraits of family, friends, and patrons in various media. In this drawing, Dürer captures the culmination of the ...