'Duke Maximilian I of Bavaria had whisked Dürer’s panel off to his private collection in Munich in 1614, just over a century after it was completed, arranging with the Dominicans for a copy to replace it. This copy is now in the Historisches Museum in Frankfurt, and although it lacks Dürer’s skilled brushwork and glorious colors, it allows us to see his design and in particular one daring, even shocking, detail. Just to the left of center Dürer painted his own portrait: an isolated figure in a recognizably German landscape, poised between the apostles looking up in awe and the Madonna floating above. He holds a board with “credits larger than a shop sign” declaring that he, Albrecht Dürer, had created this picture, ending with a large version of his monogram, “AD.”'
Jenny Uglow @nybooks

#Art #ArtHistory #Durer https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2024/02/22/in-search-of-the-rare-and-strange-durers-lost-masterpiece/