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''Portrait of the Artist Holding a Thistle'' (or ''Eryngium'') is an oil painting on parchment pasted on canvas by German artist Albrecht Dürer, painted in 1493. It is the earliest of Dürer's painted self-portraits and has been identified as one of the first self-portraits painted by a Northern artist.〔Fenyő, Iván (1956). ''Albrecht Dürer''. Budapest: Corvina. p. 16.〕 It is currently held and exhibited at the Louvre in Paris. ==History== The date, and the plant in the artist's hand, seem to suggest that this is a betrothal portrait (''Brautporträt''). Dürer has in fact depicted himself in the act of offering a flowering spray identified by botanists as ''eryngium amethystinum'': its German name is "Mannestreue", meaning conjugal fidelity. Resembling the thistle (from which the portrait's title), this umbelliferous plant is used in medicine, and is regarded as an aphrodisiac.〔(Botanical herbal note on the eryngium ), on ''Botanical.com. Accessed 13 January 2012〕 It may also have religious significance; the same plant in outline form is inscribed in the gold ground of Dürer's painting ''Christ as the Man of Sorrows'' (1493–94).〔Wolf, Norbert (2006). ''Albrecht Dürer''. Köln: Taschen. p. 28.〕 In 1493, Dürer was 22 years old and working in Strasbourg. He had completed his apprenticeship with Michael Wolgemut and his tour as a journeyman, and would marry Agnes Frey on 7 July 1494.〔 Dürer was temperamentally inclined to philosophical doubts. He often analysed his own face in drawn or painted effigies – sometimes idealizing it, sometimes not. The lines written beside the date in this painting reveal the philosophical and Christian intention of the work: :: ''Myj sach die gat'' in other words (and liberally): ''My affairs follow the course allotted to them on high''. Marriage has in part determined his destiny – the Bridegroom puts his future life in the hands of God.〔J.L. Koerner, ''The Moment of Self-portraiture in German Renaissance Art'', University of Chicago Press (1997).〕 In 1805, Goethe saw a copy of this portrait in the museum at Leipzig and wrote of it: I thought Albrecht Dürer's self-portrait, dated 1493, to be of inestimable value.〔H. von Einem, ''Goethe und Dürer - Goethes Kunstphilosophie'', Hamburg: von Schröder (1947).〕 According to Lawrence Gowing, who calls this "the most French of all his pictures", the ''Portrait of the Artist Holding a Thistle'' is singular among Dürer's paintings as "the touch is freer and color more iridescent than in any other picture one remembers".〔Gowing, Lawrence (1987). ''Paintings in the Louvre'' New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang. p. 164. ISBN 1-55670-007-5〕 The painting was purchased by the Louvre in 1922.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Portrait of the Artist Holding a Thistle」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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