Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg

Inscribed (in Latin, above portrait): Albert, by Divine Mercy the most Holy Roman Church's Titular Presbyter Cardinal of Saint Chrysogonus, Archbishop of Mainz and Madgeburg, Primate Elector of the Empire, Administer of Halberstadt, Margrave of Brandenburg; (below portrait): Thus were his eyes, his cheeks, his features at the age of 29, 1519; (artist's mark at left): AD

Dürer based this engraving of Albrecht of Brandenburg at age twenty-nine on a portrait drawing (Albertina, Vienna) he had made from life during a political gathering in Augsburg in 1518. For the engraved metal plate and two hundred examples of this print, he received the remarkable sum of two hundred gold coins and luxurious damask to make a coat. The cardinal used the portrait as a title page in his printed Hallesches Heiltumsbuch (1520). Made by the leading artist of the time, it was intended as a means to compete with his Saxon opponent Friedrich III, the Wise, who had included in his Wittenberger Heiltumsbuch (1509) an engraved frontispiece double-portrait of himself and his brother by Lucas Cranach the Elder.