Description
Durer's Lost Masterpiece tracks the history of a turning point in the career of the celebrated German artist Albrecht Durer (1471-1528), when he stopped painting altarpieces after arguing with a merchant patron over payment. As an eloquent homage to Durers life, it brings us closer to the creation and meaning of his paintings than ever before. Durer's Lost Masterpiece considers the celebrated German artist Albrecht Durer (1471-1528), his time and his legacy. It tracks the history of a crucial, and often overlooked, turning point in his career, when Durer stopped painting altarpieces after falling out with the Frankfurt merchant Jacob Heller over a commission. The story of this painting, as Durers lost masterpiece, functions as a lens through which to view the new relationship developing between art, collecting and commerce in Europe up to the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) when global trade and cultural exchanges were increasing. At the heart of the book is the argument that merchants, and their mentalities, were crucial for the making of Renaissance art and its legacy for modern art. The book draws on a decade of research, and uniquely draws the reader into the rich emotional worlds of three merchants each of whom typified the evolving relationship between art and commerce in that entrepreneurial, and often ruthless, age. It brings to life Durers determined fight for creative makers to be adequately paid and explores the big questions about how European societies came to value the arts and crafts that remain relevant to our time.
About the Author
Ulinka Rublack is a professor of history at Cambridge University and St Johns College, Cambridge, and a Fellow of the British Academy. Her work as a historian and her book The Astronomer and the Witch: Johannes Keplers Fight for his Mother (OUP, 2015) were recognised with Germanys most prestigious prize for historians, the Deutsche Historikerpreis. Rublack has published widely on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century culture as well as on methodological concerns. Her books are translated into six languages, and her book on Kepler inspired an opera, a film, a novel, musicals, and theatre plays.
Reviews
Ulinka Rublack's new book successfully combines a close reading of the sources for the life and work of Albrecht Durer with a wide-ranging account of art as a luxury commodity at a time when the trade in luxuries was going global. * Peter Burke, Emmanuel College Cambridge *
Ulinka Rublack masterfully recontextualizes Albrecht Durer's lost Heller Altarpiece, it production, and its fate. Yet her fascinating account is equally about German material culture, the rise of artistic advisors and agents, notably Hans Fugger and Philipp Hainhofer, the emerging global marketplace, and discerning collectors in Bavaria and England. Rublack recenters German creativity and tastes within the broader movement of art, ideas, and individuals across Europe. * Jeffrey Chipps Smith, Kay Fortson Chair in European Art and Professor, University of Texas, Austin *
A stunning achievement by a historian at the pinnacle of her craft-at once a sensitive portrait of Durer's emotional life that allows us to understand as a whole his desire to show what he could do with and for art at a time of transformative change and conflict in German society, and a vivid depiction of the merchants and nobles locked in fateful embrace who fueled the burgeoning world of global commerce, awash in material things and exotica, and who made Durer who he was both in his day and in ours. Quite simply a tour de force. * Pamela H. Smith, Columbia University *
Ulinka Rublack's fascinating study reminds us of this rich interconnectedness of people, ideas, and the material world during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. * Jeffrey Chipps Smith, University of Texas, Austin, Historian of Netherlandship Art Reviews *
Ambitious and impressive... a remarkable story. * Peter Marshall, Literary Review *
[Durer's Lost Masterpiece] lays out methodically, with academic brilliance, the marketplace, techno-aware basis of the 'Durer Renaissance' and the artist's rise to immortal fame. With a glorious accumulation of detail, assiduous research...a deluxe book. * Philip Hoare, The Spectator *
Illuminating... In [Rublack's] hands, the narrative of Durer's success...becomes something far more nuanced... A novel biography of an artist. * Francesca Peacock, Prospect *
An outstanding portrayal of the merchant as a creative agent and a remarkable contribution to the history of the European art market as a whole. * Jenny Uglow, New York Review of Books *
A rich cornucopia of the period, when art was joining exotic shells, potions, and unguents as an international commodity ... it has much to tell about how Durer and his contemporaries lived. * David Platzer, New Criterion *
Durer's Lost Masterpiece, which analyzes that era minutely, is the product of over fifteen years of research in archives and collections...it is precisely that amassing and marshaling of detail that makes her book such an outstanding portrayal of the merchant as a creative agent and a remarkable contribution to the history of the European art market as a whole. * Jenny Uglow, The New York Review *
Book Information
ISBN 9780198873105
Author Prof Ulinka Rublack
Format Hardback
Page Count 480
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 1218g
Dimensions(mm) 254mm * 197mm * 26mm
About the Author
Ulinka Rublack is a professor of history at Cambridge University and St Johns College, Cambridge, and a Fellow of the British Academy. Her work as a historian and her book The Astronomer and the Witch: Johannes Keplers Fight for his Mother (OUP, 2015) were recognised with Germanys most prestigious prize for historians, the Deutsche Historikerpreis. Rublack has published widely on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century culture as well as on methodological concerns. Her books are translated into six languages, and her book on Kepler inspired an opera, a film, a novel, musicals, and theatre plays.
Reviews
Ulinka Rublack's new book successfully combines a close reading of the sources for the life and work of Albrecht Durer with a wide-ranging account of art as a luxury commodity at a time when the trade in luxuries was going global. * Peter Burke, Emmanuel College Cambridge *
Ulinka Rublack masterfully recontextualizes Albrecht Durer's lost Heller Altarpiece, it production, and its fate. Yet her fascinating account is equally about German material culture, the rise of artistic advisors and agents, notably Hans Fugger and Philipp Hainhofer, the emerging global marketplace, and discerning collectors in Bavaria and England. Rublack recenters German creativity and tastes within the broader movement of art, ideas, and individuals across Europe. * Jeffrey Chipps Smith, Kay Fortson Chair in European Art and Professor, University of Texas, Austin *
A stunning achievement by a historian at the pinnacle of her craft-at once a sensitive portrait of Durer's emotional life that allows us to understand as a whole his desire to show what he could do with and for art at a time of transformative change and conflict in German society, and a vivid depiction of the merchants and nobles locked in fateful embrace who fueled the burgeoning world of global commerce, awash in material things and exotica, and who made Durer who he was both in his day and in ours. Quite simply a tour de force. * Pamela H. Smith, Columbia University *
Ulinka Rublack's fascinating study reminds us of this rich interconnectedness of people, ideas, and the material world during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. * Jeffrey Chipps Smith, University of Texas, Austin, Historian of Netherlandship Art Reviews *
Ambitious and impressive... a remarkable story. * Peter Marshall, Literary Review *
[Durer's Lost Masterpiece] lays out methodically, with academic brilliance, the marketplace, techno-aware basis of the 'Durer Renaissance' and the artist's rise to immortal fame. With a glorious accumulation of detail, assiduous research...a deluxe book. * Philip Hoare, The Spectator *
Illuminating... In [Rublack's] hands, the narrative of Durer's success...becomes something far more nuanced... A novel biography of an artist. * Francesca Peacock, Prospect *
An outstanding portrayal of the merchant as a creative agent and a remarkable contribution to the history of the European art market as a whole. * Jenny Uglow, New York Review of Books *
A rich cornucopia of the period, when art was joining exotic shells, potions, and unguents as an international commodity ... it has much to tell about how Durer and his contemporaries lived. * David Platzer, New Criterion *
Durer's Lost Masterpiece, which analyzes that era minutely, is the product of over fifteen years of research in archives and collections...it is precisely that amassing and marshaling of detail that makes her book such an outstanding portrayal of the merchant as a creative agent and a remarkable contribution to the history of the European art market as a whole. * Jenny Uglow, The New York Review *
Book Information
ISBN 9780198873105
Author Prof Ulinka Rublack
Format Hardback
Page Count 480
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 1218g
Dimensions(mm) 254mm * 197mm * 26mm
