Adoration des mages

Among the kings kneeling before the Christ Child, one has a face many visitors will recognise: Albrecht Dürer painted himself into his own Adoration. The result, in Heinrich Wölfflin's words, was the first completely lucid painting in German art.

The story behind the painting

This panel was commissioned by Frederick the Wise for the altar of the Schlosskirche in Wittenberg, and Dürer completed it in 1504, between his first and second trips to Italy. Until then his fame rested mainly on his prints and self-portraits, and this modest picture, just over a metre wide, is considered one of his most important works of the period. Its later journey was long. In 1603 Christian II of Saxony gave it to the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, and it stayed in the imperial collection in Vienna until 1792, when Luigi Lanzi, director of the Uffizi, acquired it in exchange for Fra Bartolomeo's Presentation in the Temple. Some scholars, including Erwin Panofsky, have suggested it may once have been the centre of a triptych with two Job panels known as the Jabach Altarpiece.

What to look for

On the left, Mary, the Child and the kneeling kings form a pyramid against a backdrop of arches, some broken and some only half visible. On the right, the Black king stands apart, framed by open landscape rather than architecture, and his gaze leads your eye around the whole scene. Dürer drew on his 1504 engraving of Adam and Eve: this king stands in contrapposto with carefully studied legs and feet, while the second king borrows Adam's downward gaze and profile. Look at that second king's long golden hair and beard; he is Dürer himself, and the artist's monogram sits on a block in the foreground in line with him. Search too for the small animals in the stable, the scattered plants, the turbaned servant, and the pure reds, greens, blues and gleaming gold of the gifts.

Meaning and intent

The painting is admired for its balance of northern naturalism with Italian perspective, ideal proportions and colour, a fusion that grew from Dürer's travels and his studies as a theorist. Placing a real person among the Magi was nothing unusual, an old tradition tied to diplomacy and dynastic ceremony, but Dürer's choice to become one of the kings reflects his own fame as a self-portraitist. The rich jewels and exotic costumes point to the world of collecting: Adoration images often served as reminders of the treasures gathered by their owners, and stood atop household treasure cupboards.

Legacy

The source notes that Dürer's paintings have often been judged less favourably than his graphic work, partly because of his skill in other media, yet this panel shows how fine and detailed his painting could be. He returned to the subject later: a charcoal Portrait of an African from 1508, now in the Albertina, is thought to be a preliminary study for his pen-and-ink reimagining of the Adoration in 1524. Today the panel, 99 by 113.5 centimetres, hangs in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, far from the Wittenberg altar it was made for, and it remains a key work for anyone tracing how Dürer joined northern and Italian ideas.