ALTDORFER, Albrecht, al' brent, German artist: b. shortly before 1480, probably in Ratisbon (Regensburg) ; d. there 13 Feb. 1538. One of the °Little Masters" of German art (so called because of the size of some of their works, not because of their qual ity). His father is supposed to have been the painter Ulrich Altdorfer. Besides his engrav ing, which contributes most to the artist's fame to-day, Altdorfer was renowned in his own time as an architect and painter, many of his works in the latter medium having come down to us and ensuring him a distinguished place in the German school. From 1526 until his death he was a member of the °Inner Council' of Ratisbon and held the position of municipal architect. His paintings are to be seen in the museums and private collections of Berlin, where we find, at the Royal Museum, that admirable work —'The Family of Satyrs) Other important examples of his art in the Ber lin Museum are 'Repose on the Flight into Egypt,' 'Beggary Sitting on the Train of Pride' and a 'Nativity.' Others are at Frank furt, Augsburg, Cassel, London, a most im portant work being the great altar piece of the Church of Saint Florian an der Donau. His largest picture — by some considered his masterpiece — is 'Alexander at the Battle of Arbela' in the Munich Gallery. This work so captivated Napoleon that it was carried off to Paris and only restored in 1815. A title some times bestowed on Altdorfer, aThe father of Landscape Painting," comes to him through the affection for nature which appears so strongly in such Works as 'The Mountain Landscape,' at Munich or the 'Susanna at the Bath' in the same gallery. It is most strongly
evinced, however, in his engraving. In this art he appears as perhaps the only one of the German masters who engraved his own wood blocks, Dilrer and the others leaving that proc ess to skilled workmen. There is an open question as to whether Altdorfer was a pupil of Diirer's but there is no doubt of the great Niirnbergees influence on the younger man. The number of his copper-engravings is gen erally placed at 109 (including etchings). his woodcuts at 65 — among the latter the 'Madonna of Ratisbon' should he cited. But it is the etchings such as the 'St. Jerome,' 'Samson and Delilah' and the 'Venus' which stand the highest in Altdorfer's work, and in them we get to the full the flavor of his precise in its mastery of the material but with a genuinely Romantic tendency in the thought about the pine trees, the rocks and the ruins amongst which he grouped his figures from the sacred history. Albrecht's brother ERIIARD ALTDORFI R (Or ALTDORFFER), active between 1512 and 1561. 1 also an architect, painter and engraver, att...owx d.si.it,tiun in all thrti. branches. Consult Voss, 'Meister der Graphik,' (Leipzig 1910).