Pen-and-ink drawing and water-colour on paper with filigree, 16 x 23.2 cm.
Graphische Sammlung, Albertina, Vienna.
A further piece of work very clearly showing Mantegna’s influence was the Dresden Altar (1494-1497), executed with great care in distemper on canvas, with the Madonna in the centre worshipping the child, and the saints Antonius and Sebastian on the two side panels, already foreshadowing Dürer’s forthcoming mastery. In 1498, this altar was followed by the Paumgartner Altarpiece (1498-1503), commissioned by the family of the same name, consisting of a centre panel depicting the birth of Christ surrounded by worshipping shepherds and, in the two side panels, the shining armour of the two saints George with the slayed dragon and Eustachius. Compared to the flowing pennants it is an almost happy piece of work, showing closeness to nature. However, the Italian influence can not be denied in the tempera painting Hercules, Slaying the Stymphalian Birds (1500), created from a draft by the Florentine Pollajuolo and showing Hercules, standing above a landscape, shooting with a bow and arrow.
During these years of change from the fifteenth to the sixteenth century, Dürer received commissions from the native patricians with increasing frequency. This local patronage did not usually allow for an exclusive amount, or even a majority, of work to be given to foreign potentates. The portraits of the Tucher Family (1499), the portrait of the merchant Oswald Krell (1499), and some self-portraits, which give us a good idea of Dürer’s appearance, come from this period.