Feast of the Rosary |Type||Oil on panel| |Dimensions||162 cm ×
194.5 cm (64 in × 76.6 in)| |Location||National Gallery, Prague|
The work dates to Dürer's sojourn in Venice, and had been
commissioned by Jacob Fugger, intermediary between emperor
Maximilian I and Pope Julius II, during the painter's stay as
the banker's guest in Augsburg. The contract was renewed in the
Italian city by the brotherhoods of the traders from Nuremberg
(Dürer's hometown) and from other German cities, the latter
being supported by the Fugger family. According to the contract,
the painting, to be housed in the church of the German nation in
Venice, San Bartolomeo at Rialto, should be finished before May
1506. The subject was the Feast of the Rosary, a theme connected
to the particular worship that the German citizens in Venice had
towards Our Lady of the Rosary. The execution however dragged on
until September of that year, when the Doge, the Patriarch and
other Venetian nobles visited Dürer's workshop to see the
finished work. In a