Emperor Maximilian

c. 1519 · Print

Can I see it?

Not on view at present

Where is “Emperor Maximilian” now? Collection: Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge. Not on view at present. Checked September 29, 2026.

Harvard Art Museums

Cambridge, United States

It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.

Checked: 11 days ago
In this state since: Sep 27, 2026
Source: The museum

On the map Museum page

About the work

Dürer produced this woodcut portrait just before the death of the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian of Austria (1459-1519). It is based on a sketch that the artist made of the Emperor during the Diet of Augsburg in 1518. Maximilian is pictured without imperial regalia, save the collar of the Royal Order of the Golden Fleece, although the imperial coats of arms are depicted above his head. Four versions of this woodcut exist, printed from four different block, all made to satisfy the demand for images of Maximilian after his death. This one is from the fourth block with an architectural frame added by Hans Weiditz.

Harvard Art Museums

Details

Accession number: 2006.80

In the catalog

Prints Woodcut Renaissance 16th century German

Sources

Harvard Art Museums
Image: Harvard Art Museums — © President and Fellows of Harvard College

In the life of Albrecht Dürer

The whole life

1507–1528 · Workplace
Nuremberg
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.
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.
July 1520
Journey to the Netherlands with his wife
To renew his imperial pension and win the patronage of the new emperor, Charles V, Dürer travelled with his wife and her maid down the Rhine via Cologne to Antwerp, where he was warmly received. He attended the coronation at Aachen and saw van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece and Michelangelo's Madonna of Bruges.
4 October 1520
Charles V confirms his pension
The new emperor, Charles V, confirmed Dürer's right to his pension of 100 guilders a year; the main aim of the journey had been achieved.
1520–1521
An illness caught in the Netherlands
In the Netherlands Dürer caught an unknown illness, possibly malaria, whose attacks plagued him for the rest of his life. He drew himself pointing to his spleen, with the note: “Where the yellow spot is, and where I point with my finger, that is where it hurts.”