The Prodigal Son

c. 1492 – 1494

Basel: woodcuts for the printers

In Basel, a centre of printing, Dürer stayed with Georg Schongauer. A woodblock for the title page of the Letters of St Jerome (1492), signed with his name on the back, led to the works of the “Master of the Bergmann Press” being attributed to him; he may also have worked on the woodcuts for Sebastian Brant's Ship of Fools.

July 1494

Marries Agnes Frey

Soon after returning to Nuremberg the 23-year-old Dürer married Agnes Frey, daughter of a prominent brass worker and amateur harpist; the match had been arranged in his absence, and marriage was required to open a workshop of his own. They had no children, and his letters suggest the marriage was not a happy one.

7. Juli 1494

Married: Agnes Dürer

1494–1495

First journey to Italy

Within three months of the wedding Dürer left alone for Italy, perhaps fleeing an outbreak of plague in Nuremberg. Crossing the Alps he made watercolour landscapes; in Venice he studied its art and judged Giovanni Bellini the best of its painters; Mantegna and Pollaiuolo left their mark on him.

1495

Opens his own workshop

Dürer opened his own workshop in Nuremberg, where over the next ten years he created much of his printmaking. His godfather, the publisher Anton Koberger, helped issue the first series; the city's crafts were governed by the Council rather than guilds, leaving him free to try new techniques and sell his own impressions.