art treasures - Austria / II. Republic of Austria 1971 - 3.50 Shilling

The third motif from this special stamp series shows the "Portrait of a Venetian woman" by Albrecht Dürer (1471 to 1528). This portrait was made at the beginning of his second stay in Venice between 1505 and 1507. Although the painter and his model, a girl with red lips, are said to have an inner relationship, historians have no clue as to why Dürer painted this girl and who portrayed him is at all. Albrecht Dürer came to Venice mainly because of the conflict with the great Renaissance artists. Here, not only an artistically inspiring atmosphere awaited him, but also a sense of personal competition. The commission for the rosary image brought him overwhelming recognition at the end of his stay. So he wrote in one of his farewell letters - probably in the certainty that he was famous in foreign countries, but at home almost an unknown man - the much-quoted words: "Hy pin I'm here, doheim a parasite".