By Joe & Oliver

Dürer was born on 21 May 1471, third child and second son of his

parents, who had between fourteen and eighteen children. His father

was a successful goldsmith, originally named Ajtósi, who in 1455 had moved to Nuremberg from Ajtós,

near Gyula in Hungary. Albrecht Dürer married Barbara Holper, the daughter of his master, when he himself became a master in 1467.

Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker and theorist from

Nuremberg. His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance ever since. His

well-known works include the woodcuts, Knight, Death, and the Devil (1513), Saint Jerome in his Study (1514) and Melencolia I (1514). His watercolours make him one of the first European

landscape artists, while his ambitious woodcuts revolutionized the art.

On 7 July 1494, at the age of 23, Dürer was married to Agnes Frey following an arrangement made

during his absence in Basel. Agnes was the daughter of a prominent

brass worker (and amateur harpist) in the city. However, they had no

children.

Dürer died on the 6th April 1528, aged 56, when he got Typhus Fever. He

died in Nuremberg, Holy Roman Empire, the same place he was born.

He left an estate valued at 6,874 florins—a considerable sum. His large

house, where his workshop was located and where his widow lived until her death in 1539, remains a prominent Nuremberg landmark, it has become a well visited museum.