From the point of view that only one single artist should have been the creator of not only the drawings in the Housebook but also of a number of engravings, often thought to be drypoints, in the Rijksprentenkabinet in Amsterdam, and of several paintings, stained-glass panels and woodcuts etc, scholars have today a tendency towards the identifying of separate hands as responsible for different parts of the discussed œuvre, usually suggesting new anonymous names instead of real names. It was rather early observed that some of the so-called Planet drawings were of a different artistic quality, although still in the so unique style ´livelier than life´. It is here obviously the question of copies, somewhat less livelier than life, that have been commissioned to replace damaged originals. D Hess has newly attributed the drawings of courtly life to one so-called Master of the Scenes of Courtly Life, but also these drawings seem to be partly by the hand of the main Housebook Master, partly copies of different quality. As regards the so original engravings none seems to have realized that the extraordinarily high quality of a guessed later part of these should not be the result of an attained greater skilfulness but in fact points at a new separate hand creating on the same line on an even higher level. This mistake may have been one of the main reasons for the Housebook Master’s so long anonymity.

For the successful disclosing of the names of some of the nobles, who once collected and preserved the Housebook manuscripts (presented in the previous article In Search of the Master of the Medieval Housebook), it was of course of great help that I had already rather long before been able to identify the so enigmatic and so long sought after artist’s real name and therefore knew where he had spent the greatest part of his life. The identifying of him was once a very overwhelming experience, an unexpected joy of the kind that the Swedish author and scholar Oscar Levertin, deceased in 1906, has expressed so well: Den som inte vet vilken triumf det är att identifiera en obekant kryddkrämare från 1700-talet och upptäcka hans obekanta födelse- och dödsår har icke smakat historiens innersta njutning (The one who does not know what triumph it is to identify an unknown shopkeeper from the eighteenth century and discover the unknown years for his birth and death, this one has not tasted the deeper fascination of history).

It was when looking for a possible self-portrait of the Housebook Master, that my eyes one day stopped at the sight of the modest man, who obviously was directing the tournament on the double-page 20v-21r. This man looked as if separating himself from the events in which he took part, almost as if he despised them. Suddenly all of what I had experienced about the Housebook Master’s character and about his time stood clear for me and I realized that he had to be identified with one in history rather well-known goldsmith, and that this man’s career had not only been that of a very good craftsman, that he had also been a very originally creating free artist. And I remembered of course the well-known fact that persons of great importance often happen to be nearly forgotten just because one of their children becomes a real big celebrity.

The preserved portraits of the goldsmith Albrecht Dürer (Thürer) the Elder had long caught my interest, not as much on ground of a good deal of facts that scholars had disclosed about his long and obviously successful career as a goldsmith, much more because I could imagine how mournful his life must have been, loosing so many of his 18 children in their very early years. And also because I had found some words of great appreciation, written by his son the famous artist Albrecht Dürer the Younger, somewhat confusing, as if it could be the question of an understatement. It was thus a great day when I on the good portraits of him that fortunately have been preserved could look into the eyes of the man, who I now for the first time understood must be the artist that in the history of art had so long been known only as the anonymous so-called Housebook Master.

There was now obviously the need for a well researched book about Albrecht Dürer the Elder, putting his drawings, engravings and paintings in connection with the art and the artists at the places where he had really been working. A book that had to deal with many unsolved but very interesting art problems, some of them misinterpreted for long, a book that maybe would be most suited to be written by a group of cooperating specialists, who could travel and make such further researches that might be needed for the presenting of a

revised view of the time when metal engraving raised to artistic levels and started to develop into a commercial industri. Myself I turned to other studies, rather convinced that I would rather soon be able to read a book that dealt with the Housebook Master’s whole career, written by one of the scholars who had been engaged in the extensive exhibitions and had been able to study the works in originals. Still waiting in vain for such a book I have now decided to present my actual view of some of the problems, although for the moment without availability to some maybe essential literature and without the possibility to travel and to seeing crucial works in originals.

The portraits of the goldsmith Albrecht Dürer the Elder show him as a strong and self-controlled personality. In 1490 his son portrayed the 60-year-old father (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence) as a still very vital man with a deep inner self-confidence. In another portrait, painted 10 years later (the probably original version in National Gallery, London), we see a rather tired and maybe disappointed old man, with a face from which it even emanates somewhat of a restrained dispair. The same may be said about the silver-pen portrait (Albertina, Vienna), which sometimes has been supposed to be a work by his young and then not yet very experienced son. Myself I agree with those who have claimed that it is the question of the hard-working goldsmith Albrecht Dürer the Elder’s self-portrait, seemingly showing us both some of his qualities and some of his artistic weaknesses. He is on this portrait wearing a headdress of a type that points at the possibility that his education may have included some kind of studies at a university.

Although the portrait of Albrecht Dürer the Elder on the tournament drawing probably only is a copy after one of the artist’s originals, it is yet possible to see a clear resemblance to the portraits that are known of him. Also the language of the body seems to correspond to what we can deduct about his personality from his many preserved works. It is furthermore easy to recognize the same man in a similar position at the center of the stained-glass panel representing an obviously very distinguished tournament, which has often been put in connection with the Housebook Master (Private owner, Germany). What we see here seems to be a tournament arranged in Innsbruck as part of the festivities when the old Duke Sigmund of Austria-Tirol on 4 February 1484 was married to the young Catherine of Sachsen, the two we probably see beside the tournament leader Albrecht Dürer the Elder.

On this panel it may also be able to recognize the bride’s father Duke Albrecht of Sachsen, dressed in a for his court typical big red hat, riding on a white horse at the right low corner of the glass. It is reported that Duke Albrecht travelled to this wedding feast with alle Edelleute und Bedienstete rot gekleidet; even the waggons were covered with red cloth. It may be King Ladislaus of Bohemia who a little to the right in the middle upper edge of the glass is preparing for the tournament. Among the children dressed in red we may see the two of Duke Albrecht’s sons, who are mentioned as guests. Another one of the boys might be the 12-year-old Albrecht Dürer the Younger, wearing the same headdress as the tournament leader, because headdresses of this type seem to exist exclusively in the circle of the Dürer family, maybe a design by Dürer the Elder’s brother Ladislaus, a Zaummacher. Two of the men on the horses are probably the Dukes Christoph and Wolfgang of Bavaria, who are mentioned to have sharf gerennet already when the travelling contingent made a stop at Nuremberg. One of the judges at the tournament, seen at the lower left corner, has some likeness to Philip, Elector Palatine of Pfalz, who however may not have been present at this festivity as was once planned; this marriage was postphoned a couple of times. Mentioned as present are e g Emperor Frederick’s diplomat Haug of Werdenberg, Eberhard of Württemberg and Archbishop Johann Beckenschlager of Gran.

The reason for me to look for the Housebook Master in the south-east part of Germany was on the one hand the Italian-Bohemian elements of some of his works, on the other hand that I felt myself convinced that the established consensus on an activity based in the Rhineland ought to be a mistake, not the least because so many experienced scholars had failed in identifying the artist after more than a century of intensive studies. I had also started to doubt seriously some words about the art in Nuremberg, that Max Lehrs wrote already on one of the first pages of the first volume (Vienna 1908) of his admirable history of fifteenth-century metal engraving north the Alps (at last completed with the ninth volume in 1934):

Es genüge hier festzustellen, das alle führenden, das heisst schöpferischen Künstler des Grabstichels im äussersten Westen Deutschlands nahe dem Rheinstrom sassen und Nürnberg in vordürischer Zeit an der Entwicklung keinen Anteil hatte …

Not many scholars may have been able to work quite without preferences or antipathies. Reading articles dealing with the invention and the first practice of metal engraving one may sometimes get the feeling that World War I in fact did start between the print rooms of the museums of Paris and Berlin already in the years before 1914. As regards Lehrs’s opinion about Nuremberg I have often wondered, if he had not at the end of his life understood how wrong he had been, but that his esthetic feelings made it impossible for him to wreck a wonderful intellectual building. And Nuremberg was in the 1930s surely not among Max Lehrs’s favourite cities.

A family chronicle by Albrecht Dürer the Elder, continued by Dürer the Younger (1524), is preserved in later copies. Thanks to this a few facts are known about Albrecht the Elder’s roots in Hungary, at a time about which there is still today much less researched than about the art of Western Europe. Already his father Anton was a goldsmith, a profession that still at this time did often include other artistic practices, e g the illuminating of books. No details are mentioned in the chronicle about his father’s work. As we will see in the following it may yet be possible to identify parts of it with some probability.

Albrecht Dürer der Elter ist aus seinem geschlecht geborn im Königreich zu Hungarn, nit vehren von einem kleinen Stättlein, genant Jula, 8 Meill wegs weith unter Wardin, aufs einem Dörfflein zunehst darbey gelegen, mit Nahmen Eytas. Und sein geschlecht haben sich genehrt der Ochssen und Pferdt. Aber meines Vatters Vatter ist genant gewest Anton Dürer, welcher ist Knabenweiss in das obgedachte Stättlein kommen zu einen Goldschmidt und hatt das Hantwerck bey ihm gelernt. Danach Hatt er sich verheurath mit einer Jungfrauen mit Nahmen Elisabetha. Mit der hatt Er eine Tochter Nahmens Catharina und 3 Söhn erzeugt. Den ersten Sohn, Albrecht genand, dieser ist mein lieber Vatter gewest, der ist auch ein Goldschmid worden, ein künstlicher rainer Man. Den andern Sohn har er Lasslen genant, der war ein Zaummacher. Von deme ist gebohrn mein Vetter Niclas Dürer, der zu Cölln sizt, deme man den Niclas Ungar nent. Dieser ist auch ein Goldschmid und hatt das Handwerk hier zu Nürnberg bey meinen Vatter gelernet. Den dritten Sohn hatt er Johannes genant, dem hat er Studirn lassen. Derselbe ist danach zu Wardein Pfarrer worden, ob 30 Jahr lang blieben. Darnach ist Albrecht Dürer mein lieber Vatter in Teutschland kommen, lang in Niederland gewest bey den grossen Künstern, und auff die Lezte her gen Nürmberg kommen, alss man gezehlet hat nach Christi Geburth 1455 Jahr an St. Loyen tag. Und auff den selben Tag hatte Philipp Birckheimer Hochzeith auff der Vesten, und war ein grosser Tanz unter der grossen Linden. Danach hatt mein lieber Vatter Albrecht Dürer den Alten Jeronymus Holper, der mein Anherr gewessen ist, gedienet eine lange Zeith, biss das man nach Christi Geburth gezehlet hatt 1467 Jahr. Da hat ihm mein Anherr seine Tochter geben, eine hübsche gerade Jungfrau, Barbara genand, 15 Jahr alt, und hatt mit ihr Hochzeith gehabt 8 Tag vor Vitij. Auch ist zu wissen, das mein Anfrau, alss meiner Mutter Mutter, ist des Öllingers Tochter von Weissenburg gewest, hatt geheissen Kunigunda. Und mein lieber Vatter hatt mit seinem Gemahl, meiner lieben Mutter, diesse nachvolgenden Kinder gezeuget. Das seze ich, wie er dass in sein Buch eingeschriben hatt, von Wort zu Wortt.

Item diesser obgemelde Albrecht Dürer der Eltere hat sein Leben mit grosser Mühe vnd schwehrer harter Arbeith zugebracht, und von Nichten anderst Nahrung gehabt, dan was er vor sich, sein Weib vnd Kindt mit seiner Hand gewohnnen hatt. Darum hat er gar wenig gehabt. Er hatt auch mancherley Betrübung, Anfechtung vnd Wiederwertigkeitten gehabt. Er hatt auch von Männiglich, die Ihn gekant haben, ein guet Lob gehabt, dan er hielt ein erbar Christlich Leben, ein gedultig Mann, und Sanfftmüttig, gegen Jederman fridsam, und Er wass fast danckbahr gegen Gott. Er hat sich auch nicht viell Gesellschafft vun weltlicher Freudt gebraucht. Er war auch weniger Wort und ward ein gottsfürchtig Mann.

Dieser mein lieber Vatter hat grossen Fleiss auff seine Kinder, die auff die ehre Gottes zu ziehen. Dan sein höchst Begehrn war, das er seine Kinder mit Zucht wohl auffbrechte, damit sie vor Gott und denen Menschen angenehm wurden. Darum war sein täglich Sprach zu unss, das wir Gott Lieb solten haben und treulich gegen unssern Nehsten handeln…

According to this chronicle Albrecht Dürer the Elder descended from a family living in the little no longer existing Hungarian village Ajtós (German Thür, meaning door) in the neighborough of the small city Guyla, where his father Anton had learnt his profession as a goldsmith. Albrecht was born in 1427. His place of birth is, however, not know, and we do not know where he got his earliest education. Most likely he learnt as a goldsmith in the first years of the 1440s in his father’s workshop. This may have been in Guyla but perhaps more likely at a place to which his father may have moved in order to find a better living. The bigger Nagyvárad (German Grosswardein) was the centre of a bishopric a little more than 200 km east of Buda. It was in Nagyvárad, today the city Oradea in Romania, that his younger brother Johannes later was a priest during 30 years. If the goldsmith Anton should have had higher ambitions and aimed at the West, which is likely, he would then have had to pass the big art centres Buda and Vienna, places he probably at least visited for some time and where his son may have spent some of his young years. As we will see in the following, there are circumstances pointing at the possibility, that Anton Dürer, maybe born c. 1400, already in the 1420s was established in Vienna.

Bishop of Nagyvárad was in 1409-26 Andrea Scolari from Florence, who favoured the art of the Italian Renaissance, an interest in which he was followed by later bishops. Probst in Nagyvárad was in the first years of the 1440s one of the most learned men of the time, János Vitéz from Croatia, who after studies in Vienna had been called to the court of Buda by King Sigismund. Vitéz was in 1445 appointed Bishop of Nagyvárad after Giovanni de Dominis and in 1453 chancellor at the court of Ladislaus V, King of Bohemia and Hungary. Until his death in 1472 Vitéz was at the centre of the Hungarian political and cultural life, surrounding himself with learned men and artists, among them Enea Silvio de´ Piccolomini, the later Pope Pius II. In 1465 he was appointed Archbishop of Esztergom (German Gran), the very important religious centre c. 20 km east of Vienna at the Danube, often called the Hungarian Rome. He supported artistic workshops and established one of the centres for astronomical studies at north of the Alps. He was the teacher of the later King Matthias Corvinus, who also favoured Italian culture and was a great collector of books.

Before Vitéz had György (Georgius) Pálóczy, the member of a powerful Hungarian family, been an important supporter of arts and literature. He was after studies in Vienna in 1419 appointed Bishop of Siebenbürgen in eastern Hungary. This did probably not mean that he should have spent much time there, as the possession of religious offices was often of most importance as an income and the duties could be performed by another clerical. As Archbishop of Esztergom from 1423 until his death in 1439 Pálóczy collected a library and favoured the production of illuminated books. It was he who in 1438 crowned Albrecht V of Hapsburg as new Roman German king and he acted as regent when the king was absent. These were all circumstances of great importance in Hungary at the time when Albrecht Dürer the Elder formed his life.

During the reign of Emperor Charles IV, Prague had became a very important cultural centre, to a great part with the help of architects, artists and artisans imported from Italy and Western Europe. His son Wenceslas (Václav) IV, Roman German king 1376-1400 and King of Bohemia until his death in 1419, was a great lover of the arts and supported a flowering production of illuminated books, the ´golden age´ of Bohemian illumination. In this interest he was followed by his half-brother Sigismund, who became King of Hungary in 1387, of Bohemia and of the Roman German empire in 1419, at last crowned Emperor in 1433. Sigismund, who succeeded in taking over Wenceslas’s excellent book collection, established his court at Buda. From around 1400 also this capital became a foremost centre for the production of luxuriously illuminated books. During the first half of the fifteenth century also Vienna, the residence of the dukes of Austria and with a growing university, raised to become a leading cultural centre. The during Wenceslas so flowering art of Prague lost, however, its importance at the time when Bohemia was ravagad in the wars that followed J Hus’s obviously too early started attempt to reform the shamefully commercialized Catholic Church.

The borders of many books from the fifteenth century are decorated in the Bohemian tradition with figures, flowers, birds and animals, that are more or less professionally arranged among richly winding fantasy leaves in an often somewhat humorous style originally inspired especially from Italy. Variations of this type of border illumination were widely spread and are to be found as characteristic elements of many decorated books and in decorative parts of early engravings, showing that there was a wide exchange of patterns between the artists, who probably often got commissions from or worked at different places. Albrecht Dürer the Elder must from his start have been near acquainted with this Bohemian illumination tradition, the son of the goldsmith Anton Dürer, who we may suppose also executed other artistic works, e g the illumination of manuscripts.

Scholars who have studied the illumination of Bohemian, Hungarian and Austrian manuscripts from the first half of the fifteenth century have thought it possible to attribute several works to certain artists. Among artists known with their Christian names thanks to the preserved accounts of the Klosterneuburg Abbey, c. 12 km westwards of Vienna at the Danube, are the illuminators Nicolaus, Veit and Michael, earliest studied by K Öttinger. Known only as an anonymous is the also important so-called Albrechtsminator. One artist seems to have signed himself Martinus Opifex. Some of these illuminators are interpreted to have cooperated in different manuscripts, sometimes assisted by less talented artists seemingly trying to work in the leading masters’ styles, circumstances that often make identifications on ground of style and common decorative elements somewhat unsure. The names of the artists that are mentioned for illumination of manuscripts at the Klosterneuburg Abbey have, however, not been found in any document from the Hapsburg courts, yet several circumstances make it probable that at least some of these artists have been connected with ateliers in Vienna, or maybe Wiener Neustadt c. 40 km south of Vienna.

The illuminator Nicolaus is interpreted to have been leading at what is called Wiener Hofwerkstatt, a guessed but never documented workshop. He is thought to have been active from at least c. 1405 until c. 1430, inspiring younger members of the Klosterneuburg circle. It is guessed that he might be identical with a Niclas Maler mentioned in 1413 and in 1426 in legal documents in Vienna, according to K Öttinger maybe also with a Niclaus von Brunn, Maler zu Wien, mentioned as member of the Bruderschaft von St. Christoph in Arlberg in the period c. 1400-15. Of special interest is maybe, as we will see in the following, that his first wife was called Kunigund and that his second wife, mentioned in 1426, was Elspeth, a sister of the sculptor Peter Kitl.

K Öttinger mentions as die Krönung von des Malers Werk a Canon page of Missale des Wilhelm Turs (Diözesanmuseum, Vienna), showing Dean Turs of St Stephan, Vienna, at the feet of Christ, interpreting it to be from Nicolaus’s latest time, c. 1425-30. On other pages of this manuscript he has identified what he thinks would be the earliest illuminations of the so-called Albrechtsminiator, borders decorated in a style he characterizes as geometrisiert, streng flächengebunden und von metallischer Schärfe in der Zeichnung der Details. This illuminator is interpreted to have decorated the first pages of some of the other manuscrips and therefore thought to have followed Nicolaus as leader of the supposed workshop in Vienna.

The Albrechtsminator has got his anonymous name because he illuminated, before 1437, a beautiful Book of Hours for Duke Albrecht V of Hapsburg. He is interpreted to have cooperated in works for the Klosterneuburg Abbey in the period from 1432 until c. 1450. Other decorations were executed for a Bible in several volumes (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, and Ambras), dated c. 1435. A second Book of Hours for Albrecht V (Stiftsbibliothek, Melk) was obviously commenced after that this duke in 1438 had been elected Roman German king. Also Frederick III of Hapsburg, Roman German king since 1440, favoured the Albrechtsminiator, commissioning him to take part in the illumination of the monumental Legenda aurea from c. 1446-47 and a splendid Book of Hours from c. 1447-48, both in Österreichische Nationalbibliothek.

Among the scholars who have studied the work of the Albrechtsminiator is the very thorough-going E Vaassen. In a long text based on extremely careful researches (Archiv für Geschichte des Buchwesens, 13, 1973) she has interpreted a great many book illuminations from the middle of the fifteenth century into the smallest details. She refers, however, to her observations with such a verbosity that it is often difficult to see what it is that she means should be especially characteristic in the different artists’ styles. Among her more precise observations about the Albrechtsminator is, that In Gegensatz zu den weit und ohne erkennbares Prinzip schwingenden Zweigen einer Meister Nikolaus treten bei diesen Illuminator die Ranken in gleichmässigen Wellenlinien auf, und nur ihre fadenartig dünnen Enden bewegen sich frei von dieser Anordnung. - Die Dekoration wirkt wohlgeordnet. Sie ist zu ´gekonnt´, um langweilig oder statt zu wirken.

She also found it typical that Neben Rosen, Akelei und einer Nelkenart malt er Blumen, die zwar der Phantasie entsprungen sind - jedoch nicht seiner eigenen. Sie stellen sozusagen Schulgut dar ... Noch der Lehrbüchermeister verwendet einzelne dieser Formen ... In some details she found correspondences among the illuminations of the so-called Grillinger Bible (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Münich), written c. 1428-30 and after professional illustration given by P Grillinger to the Cathedral of Salzburg.

For a scholar who has yet had access only to reproductions, most of them in black and white, it may seem pretentious to try to add something of possible value to all what has been written by the specialists. With practical experience from the following of the careers of some very qualified artists during several decades, I find it possible, however, to discern circumstances that would support the supposition that the Albrechtsminiator may have had an even longer and more important career than it has been thought up to now. Identified as a young assistant to his supposed teacher Nicolaus in the late 1420s, it would e g be possible to see him a little later as one of the qualified contributors to the illumination of the Grillinger Bible, followed by the already mentioned decorations that have since long been identified in several books during the 1430s and 1440s.

K Öttinger has in his rather detailed studies of the illuminators, who during several years worked for the Klosterneuburg Abbey, thought it possible to attribute different illuminations not only to the several times mentioned artists Nicolaus, Veit and Michael, but very often also to the anonymous so-called Albrechtsminiator, suggestions that in great parts have been repeated in the following, somewhat completed by later scholars. It is, however, possible that already Öttinger himself had found reasons to doubt some of his conclusions, because he never wrote a separate study of the Albrechtminiator, although it is this artist who is thought to have taken over the atelier of the older Nicolaus and therefore reasonably ought to be the most important of the other illuminators.

As I have shown in some preceding articles, several misreadings of medieval texts have led to serious misunderstandings, e g that the name of Andrieu de Bourges, i e the important master André Beauneveu, during the years has been repeated in the art literature as ´Alebret de Bolure´, an unidentified goldsmith, although he was the teacher of the Limbourg brothers. The name of the so-called Veit is in the accounts for the years 1424-25 interpreted as Veiten, in 1426-28 as Vito. Without having seen yet the actual documents, I am prepared to guess that Veiten in reality might be read as Anton and that the works attributed to this artist, as well as to the Albrechtsminiator, in fact may be the earliest preserved illuminations of the goldsmith Anton Dürer, the father of Albrecht the Elder and the grandfather of Albrecht the Younger. One may guess that Anton already as a boy had showed himself talented for artistic work to such a degree that he was chosen, and accepted, to be educated in a goldsmith’s atelier, although born in a family that sich genehrt der Ochssen und Pferdt.

It is of course not possible that an artist, who as the Albrechtsminiator is thought to have taken over a very qualified atelier, should not have been commissioned to paint also other, perhaps more profitable works than the illumination of books. The goldsmith Anton Dürer may in reality have been the leader of an atelier which, as many shops at this time, produced very different kinds of goldsmith work as well as paintings, of which maybe illuminations was only a small part. As most masters he had probably assistants and pupils all the time. An illuminated Breviary (Universitätsbibliothek, Salzburg), which has once belonged to Archbishop G Pálóczy (dead in 1439), seems to be the most interesting early proof of the type of book illumination that we will then find repeated very often in the following years, often with only small variations, even in some incunabula from the Fust-Schöffer printing firm in Mainz. The connection with the powerful Pálóczy makes it probable, that it has been produced in an atelier that already in the 1430s was very important in Vienna. Die Werkstätte der Grillinger-Bibel und das Palosz-Brevier … um räumlich weit voneinander entfernt entstandene Codices anzuführen - sind zu nennen; vor allem aber der Kreis um den Albrechtsminiator … Alle angegebenen Blumensorten, die Zyklamen ausgenommen, finden sich bei ihm vorgebildet. Nur die Rosen erscheinen in der einfacheren Form, die auch die Grillinger Bibel ziert. Sogar die eben beschriebene Blüte mit den aufgelegten Fischblasen trifft man in seinem Werk, writes E Vaassen, who does not have taken into consideration, however, that also the Grillinger Bible may have been illuminated in Vienna.

It has never been able to identify the very qualified artist in Vienna, up to now known as the anonymous Master of the Albrecht Altar, who c. 1435-38 painted the so-called ´little Albrecht Altar´, of which five panels are preserved (Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, and Belvedere, Vienna), and one, the Annunciation, was destroyed in Berlin in 1945. This artist’s main preserved work, 28 of once 32 panels of an Altarpiece for the Carmelite church in Vienna (now in the museum of the Klosterneuburg Abbey), was severely damaged during World War II. The iconographic range of this big altar, interpreted to have been painted in the years c. 1438-40, is remarkable and seems to presuppose the cooperation of some learned ecclesiastic, maybe Archbishop G Pálóczy. It was commissioned by O Oberndorffer, a financial official at the court of Albrecht V of Hapsburg. The main motif is the Virgin in the centre of different groups arranged at the sides of a now lost central shrine.

The style of the Master of the Albrecht Altar is according to the anonymous writer in U Thieme-F Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künste, XXXVII, 1950, gekennzeichnet durch einen ´krassen Überrealismus´ der sich in einer metallischen Schärfe der Umrisse u. in harten Gegensätzen von belichteten u. beschatteten Partien zu erkennen gibt, a characterization that so near reminds of the identified style of the Albrechtsminiator that it seems reasonable to consider the possibility that both these important altarpieces may have been produced in Anton Dürer’s atelier. The so fortunately preserved panels from a period in Vienna about which so little is known were, however, after the war found to be severely damaged, partly zersprungen und bombiert, völlig verbräunt und mit verschwärzten Übermalungen … Von der urspünglichen Leuchtkraft der gotischen Malerei und dem Glanz der Vergoldung war nichts mehr zu erkennen, writes I Karl in her contribution to the book Der Albrechtsaltar und sein Meister (Vienna 1981). Ein einheitliches Farbniveau der Tafeln wäre nur durch eine Vollretusche zu erzielen gewesen (Karl).

It was thus obviously chosen to restore the panels to church decorations centred on the religious legends, repainted in ´ursprünglichen Leuchtkraft´. It may, however, be possible to imagine more of the original character of the lost paintings by comparing with the poetic sensibility that the artist shows in the Annunciation, to judge from a photograph taken before this panel was destroyed. The Virgin’s rounded face is here of a type that seems to have inspired to some later faces by Anton Dürer’s son Albrecht the Elder.

A Latin Prayerbook, sold at Sotheby’s in London in 1986, is among the very few illuminated Hungarian manuscripts that are known from the period when Anton was active. Mentioned as compilator of the text is Laurence of Brezina, a chronicler and poet (dead before 1437), who was chancellor at the court of Prague. These illuminations, seemingly preceding those in the mentioned Breviary that once belonged to G Pálóczy, have been attributed to a so-called Master of Körmöcbánya, named after the town in northern Hungary for which a minute-book was produced in 1426. Attributed to the same artist are e g a Breviary in Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, and a Missal from Pozsony in Széchényi-Nationalbibliothek in Budapest.

It seems on ground of style also probable that Anton Dürer may be the artist, up to now never identified, who seemingly on the top of his career has with careful perfection executed the never fulfilled illumination of the extraordinarily luxurious so-called Giant Bible of Mainz (Library of Congress, Washington), an artist who e g preferred to arrange his flowers, birds, animals and windling acantus leaves on the same level, which is such a significant characteristic of the style of the Albrechtsminiator. The scribe has noted that he had been writing during 15 months on the two volumes of this sumptuos manuscript on wellum, from April 1452 until July 1453. For the illumination of it the commissioner obviously sought and found an artist on a level corresponding to that of the expensive manuscript. The style of this illumination points definitely at Vienna, and E Vaassen has noted several details near corresponding with elements that are characteristic for the Albrechtsminiator. The fact that the Bible seems to have been commissioned in connection with Frederick III’s crowning as Roman German emperor in Rome gives some probability to the supposition that it may have been intended for the Hapsburg court.

Quite as his famous descendants, also Anton Dürer may in young years have travelled to Western Europe. When his son Albrecht Dürer the Elder in 1455 had returned from his long stay in Burgundy, the father may from him have been able to obtain a new injection of Western ideas. This may have contributed to the specialists’ creation of a new anonymous, a so-called Master of the Maximilian Schoolbooks (Lehrbüchermeister), thought to have been a pupil of the Albrechtsminiator, to whom his style is so near related. Among illuminations attributed to this guessed new artist are schoolbooks for the young Maximilian of Hapsburg, in the middle of the 1460s donated to the court by Stephan Heuner. Some characteristics of this artist’s style point at the possibility that he may have been a rather old man working partly on routine, strengthening the supposition that we might here still have to deal with Anton Dürer himself, now perhaps in his 60s.

It was at this time very usual that a young artist by marrying one of his master’s daughters followed an old master as leader of the atelier. One of the girls in a family was normally given her Christian name after her mother. A tentative identification of the Albrechtsminator with Anton Dürer is therefore somewhat strengthened also by the fact that his supposed teacher Nicolaus’s second wife was christened Elspeth, and Anton Dürer’s wife is known as Elisabeth, maybe his master’s daughter.

If it in the future would be possible to confirm that the here presented supposition that the name Veiten in reality might refer to Anton Dürer, it would add some interesting substance to the little we know about Albrecht Dürer the Elder’s earliest years, except that he was a product of the very special art milieu of Eastern Europe in the first half of the fifteenth century. Maybe Albrecht Dürer the Younger in his chronicle did not give any details about his grandfather’s career, because Anton’s creativity was still in 1524 very remembered in Nuremberg, a city he must have visited more than once and in which he maybe even lived for some time. One real fact is, however, known since long about the young Albrecht the Elder. He is mentioned in a fortunately preserved document listing the men who were mobilized in Nuremberg for a siege and destruction of the castle Wartenfels in February 1444, followed by a less successful siege of the castle Lichtenburg in March. It is not known under which circumstances the c. 17-year-old Dürer the Elder was present in Nuremberg. His elementary artistic education must at this time have been nearly at its end; maybe he was in Nuremberg as a journeyman, some time later followed by the known long stay in the Netherlands.

Up to now it has been thought that Albrecht the Elder’s many years in the Netherlands should have been spent studying or in the service of different well-reputed goldsmith masters. This is probably quite correct if remembering that a first class goldsmith at this time was often educated and active also as e g illuminator, painter of panels and maybe even as an architect. The new knowledge I present here will of course open for the very inspiring task to try to follow in the young artist’s footsteps in the Netherlands. That he was acquainted with Bruges seems very likely, because Emperor Frederick III had him included as a member of the imperial army that in 1488 marched to Bruges for the rescue of his imprisoned son Maximilian. Two drawings showing the released Maximilian (Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin) prove that Albrecht the Elder was present at some important events in this city. Another drawing in the same museum seems to show Emperor Frederick thanking two young men who probably had been imprisoned together with Maximilian.

The fact that Albrecht the Elder at two occasions was commissioned to direct courtly tournaments makes it probable that he in Nuremberg had a reputation for experience in the arranging of such festivities. Maybe he had not yet left Nuremberg in 1446. A drawing in Stadtbibliothek in Nuremberg shows a Nürnberger Gesellenstechen from this year, with several richly decorated mounted competitors in lively action as in the Housebook drawings. It is rather likely that Albrecht during his many years in the Netherlands had the possibility to see and maybe also to take part in the arrangement of courtly tournaments. One may even guess that he e g could have been in the service of one of the artists, who in 1454 were called to Lille by Duke Philip of Burgundy for the painting of decorations at the big banquet du faisan, maybe assisting Jean le Tavernier, whose rather high payment included compensation for assistants. Among Netherlandish centres, where Albrecht may have studied or worked as a journeyman bey den grossen Künstern, it is reasonable to guess on e g Tournai with its big Campin atelier, on Brussels with Rogier van der Weyden established as a leading master, on Tavernier’s Oudenaarde, on Dieric Bouts’s Haarlem and Leuven, and on cities as Ghent, Valenciennes and maybe even Utrecht in the North.

There is perhaps also, provided that the name Ouwater in fact should be a misspelling of Oudenaarde, some possibility that Albrecht the Elder might be identified with an enigmatic painter, who by Karel van Mander - as late as in 1604 - is namned Albert van Ouwater and guessed to have been active in the Netherlands c. 1440-65. Looking at the only painting that has reasonably been attributed to this artist, the Raising of Lazarus (Gemäldegalerie, Berlin), there is in fact in the right part a young man who is looking out of the painting in direction the viewer in a way that may be meant as a self-portrait, and he is not without some likeness to a supposed Albrecht Dürer the Elder in his late 20s.

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