Self-Portrait with Fur-Trimmed Robe,

“I, Albrecht Dürer of Nuremberg portrayed myself in appropriate colours aged twenty-eight years”—each word of this inscription in Latin was carefully chosen. This self-portrait, probably the most unusual in the history of art due to its immediate frontality and meticulous execution, touches most viewers. Dürer based the style of this portrait on icons of Christ the Saviour, his hand raised in the sign of a blessing; the details, however, are highly individual. The direct gaze and the hand in the picture address seeing and the act of creating.