cross the ditch on the west
side of the town and make your way to the Rosenau, in the
Fuertherstrasse. The Rosenau is a garden of trees and roses not lacking
in chairs and tables, in bowers, benches, and a band. There, too, you
will see the good burgher with his family drinking beer, eating
sausages, and smoking contentedly.
[Footnote A: From "The Story of Nuremberg." Published by E.P. Dutton &
Co.]
ALBERT DUERER[A]
BY CECIL HEADLAM
Among the most treasured of Nuremberg's relics is the low-ceilinged,
gabled house near the Thiergaertnerthor, in which Albert Duerer lived and
died, in the street now called after his name. The works of art which he
presented to the town, or with which he adorned its churches, have
unfortunately, with but few exceptions, been sold to the stranger. It is
in Vienna and Munich, in Dresden and Berlin, in Florence, in Prague, or
the British Museum, that we find splendid collections of Duerer's works.
Not at Nuremberg. But here at any rate we can see the house in which he
toiled--no genius ever took more pains--and the surroundings which
imprest his mind and influenced his inspiration.
If, in the past, Nuremberg has been only too anxious to turn his works
into cash, to-day she guards Albert Duerer's house with a care and
reverence little short of religious. She has sold, in the days of her
poverty and foolishness, the master's pictures and drawings, which are
his own best monument; but she has set up a noble monument to his memory
(by Rauch, 1840) in the Duerer Platz, and his house is opened to the
public between the hours of 8 A.M. and 1 P.M., and 2 and 6 P.M. on week
days. The Albert-Duerer-Haus Society has done admirable work in restoring
and preserving the house in its original state with the aid of Professor
Wanderer's architectural and antiquarian skill. Reproductions of
Duerer's works are also kept here.
The most superficial acquaintance with Duerer's drawings will have
prepared us for the sight of his simple, unpretentious house and its
contents. In his "Birth of the Virgin" he gives us a picture of the
German home of his day, where there were few superfluous knick-knacks,
but everything which served for daily use was well and strongly made and
of good design. Ceilings, windows, doors and door-handles, chests,
locks, candlesticks, banisters, waterpots, the very cooking utensils,
all betray the fine taste and skilled labor, the personal interest of
the man who made th
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