Nuremberg woman in house dress 1501

Albrecht Dürer rendered this image of a Nuremberg woman in a house dress with pen and ink. The work presents a figure whose identity is submerged beneath her place in a social order. Dürer made this drawing in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century. In that time, the Holy Roman Empire operated with a rigid class structure, and what you wore announced your position in the social hierarchy. Dress defined social roles and moral expectations. The artist’s careful rendering of the woman’s clothes tells us about Nuremberg’s distinctive culture. It also makes us consider the artist's place in the social order, and his critical attitude toward it. To understand this image better, you could consult primary sources from the period, such as city ordinances regarding dress codes and sumptuary laws. You might also examine the artist's other works to understand the ways he negotiated the demands of patronage and the expression of his own critical intelligence.