Head of an Angel 1506

Albrecht Dürer made this drawing of an angel's head with metalpoint and white heightening on blue prepared paper. The artwork was made in 1506 during Dürer's second trip to Venice. It’s fascinating to consider how the artistic and intellectual climate of the Italian Renaissance influenced this Northern artist. We can observe a fusion of German attention to detail with Italian ideals of beauty, and in particular the influence of Leonardo da Vinci, whose sfumato technique Durer emulated. The cultural exchange is apparent in the work itself, but the historical conditions of artistic patronage in Venice, plus the influence of humanist circles, would have shaped Dürer’s decisions too. To understand such a complex cultural artifact more fully, we can consult letters, diaries and account books that tell us more about the day-to-day realities of artistic production. It all serves as a reminder that what we see in a gallery is only one small fragment of a much larger historical picture.