Herkules

1486

Apprenticed to Michael Wolgemut

The fifteen-year-old Dürer, whose precocious gift for drawing was plain, was apprenticed to Michael Wolgemut, Nuremberg's leading artist, whose large workshop produced, among much else, woodcuts for books. There he learned drypoint and how to design woodcuts.

1490

Sets out on his Wanderjahre

Having completed his apprenticeship, Dürer followed German custom and set out on his Wanderjahre to learn from masters elsewhere, spending about four years away. He probably went to Frankfurt and the Netherlands.

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.

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.