Portrait of a Clergyman (Johann Dorsch?)

Albrecht Dürer

National Gallery of Art

Shown from the chest up, a pale-skinned, clean-shaven man looks off to our left against a moss-green background in this vertical portrait painting. The man’s shoulders and face are angled to our left, and he looks up and in that direction with silvery-blue eyes under flat, thin brows. The end of his short nose is slightly flattened, and his thin, pale pink lips are pressed together in an uneven line. He has the suggestion of a cleft chin set in a square jaw. Auburn-brown, wavy, chin-length hair and bangs frame his face under a black floppy cap. His dark garment has a high neck and falls in vertical folds down his chest. The earthy green background darkens around the edges. The artist signed and dated the painting, 1516, near the top right corner with a monogram of a capital letter D tucked between the wide, long legs of a capital A.