Focus on Portrait of the Artist's Mother at the Age of 63 and explore the Description and background.
Barbara Holper was the daughter of Hieronymus Holper, under whom Dürer's Hungarian father served his apprenticeship as a goldsmith. Hieronymus Holper gave his daughter into marriage when Albrect was 40 and she was 15. Although they appeared to be compatible and well-matched, according to their son they shared difficult lives and many set-backs. They had 18 children together, beginning in 1468 and ending in 1492,  only two of whom survived into adulthood.  Dürer biographer Jane Hutchinson suggests that Barbara Holper may have been trained and worked as a goldsmith. After her death, her grieving son wrote:This my pious Mother bore and brought up eighteen children; she often had the plague and many other severe and strange illnesses, and she suffered great poverty, scorn, contempt, mocking words, terrors, and great adversities. Yet she bore no malice. She feared Death much, but she said that to come before God she feared not. Also she died hard, and I marked that she saw something dreadful, for she asked for the holy-water, although, for a long time, she had not spoken. Immediately afterwards her eyes closed over. I saw also how Death smote her two great strokes to the heart, and how she closed mouth and eyes and departed with pain. I repeated to her the prayers. I felt so grieved for her that I cannot express it. God be merciful to her.
Dürer presents his mother with a stark realism that at first view might seem cruel or grotesque if he had not left behind written record of his affection. Her face is emaciated to the point of appearing skeletal, her skin deeply wrinkled and shadowed, her eyes almost detached and her face seemingly looking up towards a void of despair. Yet his written record about both his parents are deeply compassionate, sympathetic and caring and it is accepted that the portraits are sensitive studies of the ravages of old age and illness on human flesh. While Dürer forensically detailed the effects of aging on others, he was less inclined to record its work on his own body; his last full self-portrait was completed in 1500.
Hungarian father gave left