Dürer's portrait of his mother

That's a hard 63! I've got 2 years on that old bag, and I could be her daughter.

This "momager" recommends a waterproof sunblock and an intensive nighttime moisturizer, just for a start!

She looks better than Madonna.

She does look ancient -- my mother is over 80, and looks better. But she may already have been very ill by the time he drew her -- cancer or tuberculosis will do that to even a young person.

Durer is a fantastic artist and is not discussed enough. Thank you for posting this, OP.

You're welcome, r4. I've always thought he'd have been interesting to know in person. I think he had a good sense of how extraordinary he was, especially at printmaking.

18 children - just think about that - in the 15th century.

I would have welcomed death if I was her.

r6 Catherine of Siena was her mother's TWENTY-FIFTH child (I am almost certain there were some multiples in there)

R1, Durer's picture depicts what Kris Jenner would look like without plastic surgery.

Tough crowd. You should look so good after bearing and raising 18 children in poverty and suffering from the plague.

I think that's what Keith Urban wakes up to every morning.

Durer had classic BDF and pretty lips.

After raising 18 children in poverty, she probably looked that haggard at 35.

Incredible work of art, OP, thanks for starting a good discussion.

Some under-eye almond butter serum and a vaginal steam would take decades off her, OP.

And some dentures.

Only on the DL would a discussion on Dürer immediately turn to the Kardashian/Jenner whores. You bitches are trash!

Did she actually raise 18 children to adulthood while poor, or did she lose a few along the way?

If she actually got them all to adulthood alive that was a monumental achievement, infant mortality was high and medical care was primitive to actively dangerous, even queens died of "childbed fever" (like his contemporary Queen Jane Seymour). Even Queen Anne, who came over a century later, was famous for losing 17 children, through everything from miscarriage to stillbirth to infant mortality to childhood diseases.

Only three of her 18 children survived to adulthood.

Durer is underrated as an artist. That is a very poignant picture OP, and quite moving OP. I used to be disturbed by anything to do with death (graveyards, funeral homes etc) but as the prospect of my parents dying became more real I somehow found comfort in those things. I think that the realization that most people throughout history go through very similar things made me more at peace with it.

Knowing that the family of the person in the 300 year old grave felt much the same emotions as I did when their loved one died gives me a kind of peace. I'm probably not explaining it well though.

Thank you for posting this.

Durer was hot! However, his last self portrait stops at the age of 28, I believe. And he was close to his mother? Was he perhaps the first DLer?

So I searched for "Durer painting", and this came up.

Perhaps it's one of his lesser-known works...

Here's an interesting etching which I hadn't seen before. If most artists of his era put anyone who wasn't white into their art, the result was offhand or a caricature. But this is a lifelike portrait, done with care and attention, with the sitter treated as an individual with a personality.

I will remember it, the next time someone complains about black actors being cast in Tudor-era dramas.

Nude self-portrait (whose aesthetic always looked rather modern to me):

r18 one of my favorite poems is Ben Jonson's "On my First Son," written after the death of his son at age seven. I know I'll sound like a MARY!!!! but it's one of the few poems that moves me to tears:

Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;

My sin was too much hope of thee, lov'd boy.

Seven years tho' wert lent to me, and I thee pay,

Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.

O, could I lose all father now! For why

Will man lament the state he should envy?

To have so soon 'scap'd world's and flesh's rage,

And if no other misery, yet age?

Rest in soft peace, and, ask'd, say, "Here doth lie

Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry."

For whose sake henceforth all his vows be such,

As what he loves may never like too much.

r22, he could get it.