Portrait of a Young Fürleger with Loose Hair

This 1497 portrait of a young Fürleger woman with loose hair, in the Städel Museum, belongs to a group of portraits Dürer painted of Nuremberg patrician women. The loose hair may indicate the subject is unmarried, as married women typically covered their hair Albrecht Dürer brought Italian Renaissance ideas north, combining German Gothic tradition with classical proportions to become the dominant artist in the German-speaking world Portraiture flourished during the Renaissance as humanism eleva

The cascading hair is rendered with Dürer's famous precision, each strand individually described with fine brushwork. The portrait combines Northern attention to surface detail with a nascent Italian warmth in the flesh tones.