Stefan Lochner was a German painter working in the late International Gothic period. His paintings combine that era's tendency toward long flowing lines and brilliant colours with the realism, virtuoso surface textures and innovative iconography of the early Northern Renaissance. Based in Cologne, a commercial and artistic hub of northern Europe, Lochner was one of the most important German painters before Albrecht Dürer. Extant works include single-panel oil paintings, devotional polyptychs and illuminated manuscripts, which often feature fanciful and blue-winged angels. Today some thirty-seven individual panels are attributed to him with confidence.
Left wing, Martyrdom of the Apostles
Last Judgement, c. 1435. Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne
Right wing, Martyrdom of the Apostles
Dombild Altarpiece (or Altarpiece of the City's Patron Saints or Adoration of the Magi), centre panel. Tempera on oak, 260 × 285 cm. Cologne Cathedral
Albrecht Dürer, sometimes spelled in English as Durer, was a German painter, printmaker, and theorist of the German Renaissance. Born in Nuremberg, Dürer established his reputation and influence across Europe in his twenties due to his high-quality woodcut prints. He was in contact with the major Italian artists of his time, including Raphael, Giovanni Bellini, and Leonardo da Vinci, and from 1512 was patronized by Emperor Maximilian I.
Dürer's Self-portrait at 26 at Prado Museum
Self-portrait silverpoint drawing by the thirteen-year-old Dürer, 1484. Albertina, Vienna.
The earliest painted Self-Portrait (1493) by Albrecht Dürer, oil, originally on vellum (Louvre, Paris)
Dürer's sketch of his wife Agnes Frey (1494)