Self-Portrait with Fur-Trimmed Robe

With this painting Dürer, then 28 years old, created one of the most unusual works in portraiture history. The frontality and the strong idealization are reminiscent of representations of Christ, both aspects however being inseparable from Dürer's early studies of human proportion. His gaze and his hand, representing an artist's tool, are emphasized, rendering the painting an inventively programma…