Der Apostel Paulus

1507–1528 · Workplace

Nuremberg

1513–1516

Three years without painting

Complaining that painting did not pay enough to justify the time compared with his prints, Dürer produced no paintings from 1513 to 1516.

1515

A life pension from the emperor

The perpetually cash-strapped Maximilian could not pay on time and offered to exempt the artist from city taxes, which the Nuremberg Council opposed. At Dürer's request the emperor granted him a life pension of 100 guilders a year from the sums Nuremberg paid into the imperial treasury.

1517

Joins Nuremberg's circle of reformers

Dürer joined the circle of Nuremberg reformers led by the Augustinian vicar Johann Staupitz and Wenceslaus Linck. Around 1518 he came to know the writings of Martin Luther, which, he said, had “greatly helped” him.

summer 1518

At the Imperial Diet in Augsburg

Dürer represented Nuremberg at the Imperial Diet in Augsburg, where he drew Maximilian I and Albrecht of Brandenburg and painted a portrait of Jakob Fugger.

1519

Death of Emperor Maximilian

Maximilian, Dürer's chief patron, died just as the artist feared he was losing “my sight and freedom of hand” (perhaps from arthritis) and was increasingly drawn to Luther's writings. Shortly before the emperor's death Dürer had made his portrait.