Why it matters
Dürer's earliest painted self-portrait, made at 22, shows him holding a sprig of eryngium, whose German name means 'man's fidelity'. It may have been a betrothal portrait: he married Agnes Frey the following year.
Did you know?
- It was painted in 1493 in Strasbourg.
- It is one of the first self-portraits by a northern artist.
- It is painted on parchment, later pasted onto canvas.
- The Louvre acquired it in 1922.
Based on the Wikipedia article Portrait of the Artist Holding a Thistle (CC BY-SA 4.0).
