"
When in 1490 his apprenticeship was completed Duerer set out on his
Wanderjahre, to learn what he could of men and things, and, more
especially, of his own trade. Martin Schongauer was dead, but under that
master's brothers Duerer studied and helped to support himself by his art
at Colmar and at Basle. Various wood-blocks executed by him at the
latter place are preserved there. Whether he also visited Venice now or
not is a moot point. Here or elsewhere, at any rate, he came under the
influence of the Bellini, of Mantegna, and more particularly of Jacopo
dei Barbari--the painter and engraver to whom he owed the incentive to
study the proportions of the human body--a study which henceforth became
the most absorbing interest of his life.
"I was four years absent from Nuremberg," he records, "and then my
father recalled me. After my return Hans Frey came to an understanding
with my father. He gave me his daughter Agnes and with her 200 florins,
and we were married." Duerer, who writes so lovingly of his parents,
never mentions his wife with any affection; a fact which to some extent
confirms her reputation as a Xantippe. She, too, in her way, it is
suggested, practised the art of cross-hatching. Pirkheimer, writing
after the artist's death, says that by her avariciousness and quarreling
nature she brought him to the grave before his day.
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