2025 Theses Doctoral

Albrecht Dürer & the Moralizing Portrait of the Renaissance Merchant

Mayer, Mateusz

This dissertation examines Albrecht Dürer’s (1471–1528) portraits of merchants within the complex moral and social framework of late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century Europe, a time of significant economic, religious, and cultural transformations. It addresses how Dürer’s merchant portraits navigated the moral tensions of a profession simultaneously lauded for its economic contributions and scrutinized for its associations with greed and materialism. Against a backdrop of Christian moral discourse and shifting social hierarchies, merchants used portraiture to assert identities that reconciled personal ambition with societal ideals of virtue, humility, and restraint.

Through close visual analysis, contextual historical research, and the study of contemporary moral and mercantile writings, this dissertation investigates key portraits by Dürer —including those of Oswolt Krel, Jakob Heller, Bernhard von Reesen, and Johannes Kleberger —as visual constructs embodying Renaissance ideals of moderation and self-regulation. These works reveal not only how merchants counteracted stereotypes of avarice but also how broader cultural forces shaped their identities.

The portraits engage themes such as the suppression of bestial instincts through education and self-knowledge, the guiding influence of faith and moderation, and the shaping of daily conduct by networks, letter culture, and intellectual pursuits in astrology, mathematics, and cartography. Each chapter centers on a single portrait or group of portraits, using these works as a framework to explore Renaissance merchant culture and self-fashioning. Socio-political contexts, archival sources—including Dürer’s own writings—and comparative analysis with other contemporary portraitists, further elucidates how these portraits functioned as strategic tools for negotiating identity and morality.

Ultimately, this study demonstrates that Dürer’s merchant portraits served as powerful social agents, offering merchants a means to align their public personas with ideals of Christian virtue and navigate the complexities of a rapidly transforming cultural and economic landscape.