Portrait of Jakob Fugger the Rich

He was one of the richest merchants of Augsburg, and Dürer gave him a blue sky, a gold-embroidered cap and a coat lined with fur. Yet the real subject is the face: calm, turned aside, and very sure of itself.

The story behind the painting

In 1518 Albrecht Dürer travelled to Augsburg as part of the delegation of his home city, Nuremberg, for the Diet of Augsburg, a great assembly called by Emperor Maximilian I. The town was crowded with powerful people, and Dürer met many of them. Among them was Jakob Fugger, one of the richest merchants of the city, with whom the artist had been on good terms since his second journey to Venice in 1506-1507. Dürer portrayed Fugger during that visit in 1518, but the painted portrait we see today was carried out later, around 1520. So the picture holds two moments at once: a meeting at a crowded political gathering, and the quieter work of turning that meeting into paint.

What to look for

Dürer shows Fugger as a bust in three-quarter view, the head turned so that he looks toward the left. Behind him there is nothing but a flat blue background, which makes the figure stand out with great clarity. On his head sits a finely embroidered hat, and his shoulders are wrapped in a wide coat with a fur lining. Take a moment with these two details, the cap and the fur, because they are where the painter puts his care. The panel is about 69 by 53 centimetres, large enough for a life-like head, and the simple setting leaves us alone with the sitter. There are no objects, no room and no landscape to distract from the man himself.

Meaning and intent

According to the source, the fine hat and the fur-lined coat are a show of Fugger's high social status. In other words, the clothes speak for him. A portrait like this was a way of saying who someone was in the world: a man of wealth and standing, dressed accordingly. The calm blue ground and the turned head add to this sense of composure, as if the sitter has no need to look at us to be noticed. It is also a portrait made out of friendship and contact rather than distance, since Dürer knew Fugger personally. The painting quietly records the meeting of an artist and a merchant at the height of their careers.

Legacy

The portrait now belongs to the Bavarian State Painting Collections in Munich. It is an oil painting from the German Renaissance, and it sits among the many portraits Dürer made of the important people of his age. What makes it memorable is the balance between richness and restraint: precious materials painted with care, set against a plain blue that never competes with them. When you stand before it, you meet the man whom the painting's title calls Jakob Fugger the Rich, seen through the eyes of an artist who had known him for years and who chose to give him a sky rather than a palace.

Did you know?

Oil painting dated around 1520; Dürer first portrayed Fugger in Augsburg in 1518
Size: 69.4 × 53 cm
Collection: Bavarian State Painting Collections, Munich
Dürer and Fugger had been on good terms since Dürer's second trip to Venice (1506-1507)

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