PLATE--MOSES BREAKING THE TABLETS OF THE LAW
This is one of the illustrations of the Doré Bible, published in 1865-66. The story is well known of how Moses went up into the Mount of the Lord to receive the laws for the Israelites, which were written upon tables of stone. Upon his descent from the Mount he found that his followers had set up a golden calf, which they were worshipping; and in his wrath Moses broke the tablets on which the Law was inscribed. The power shown in his attitude, the affrighted faces of the cowering Jews, the thunder and lightning as an expression of the wrath of the Almighty are all painted in Doré's best manner.
(Pronounced Dooer-rer') _Nuremberg School_ 1471-1528 _Pupil of Wolgemuth and Schongauer_
Albrecht Dürer by nationality was a Hungarian, but he was born in the city of Nuremberg. His father had come from the little Hungarian town of Eytas to Nuremberg that he might practise the craft of a goldsmith. Notwithstanding his Hungarian origin, the name is German and the family "bearing," or sign, is the open door. This device suggests that the name was first formed from "Thurer," which means "carpenter," maker of doors.
The father became the goldworker for a master goldsmith of Nuremberg named Hieronymus Holper, and very soon the new employee had fallen in love with his master's daughter. The daughter was very young and very beautiful; her name was Barbara, and as Herr Dürer was quite forty years of age, while she was but fifteen, the match seemed most unlikely, but they married and had eighteen children! The great painter was one of them.
Albrecht loved his parents most tenderly, and from first to last we hear no word of disagreement among any members of that immense household. Young Albrecht was especially the companion of his father, being brilliant, generous, and hard-working in a family where everyone needed to do his best to help along. This love and companionship never ceased until death, and after his parents died Albrecht wrote in a touching manner of their death, describing his love for them, and their many virtues. He was an author and a poet as well as a painter, and only Leonardo da Vinci matched him for greatness and versatility. We may know what Dürer's father looked like, since the son made two portraits of him; one is to be seen in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence and the other belongs to the Duke of Northumberland's collection. The latter portrait has been reproduced in an engraving, so that it is familiar to most people.