Which German Renaissance painter is known for his self-portrait at age 28?

Albrecht Dürer is the German Renaissance painter known for his famous Self-Portrait at Twenty-Eight, painted in 1500. The frontal portrait shows Dürer wearing a dark fur-trimmed coat and looking directly at the viewer with unusual intensity.

The work is held at the Alte Pinakothek in Munich and is the last of Dürer’s three painted self-portraits. Its inscription identifies him as Albrecht Dürer of Nuremberg and states that he portrayed himself at the age of 28. Because he was born in 1471, the painting was completed shortly before his twenty-ninth birthday.

Dürer’s pose is strikingly formal and resembles the frontal presentation often used in religious images of Christ. That resemblance may suggest the elevated status Dürer claimed for the artist, who was increasingly viewed as an intellectual creator rather than merely a craftsman.

A common mix-up concerns Dürer’s Self-Portrait at 26, painted in 1498 and now in Madrid’s Prado Museum. The Madrid painting is not the age-28 portrait; the famous age-28 work is the 1500 Munich self-portrait.