Erhard Altdorfer

Who was Erhard Altdorfer?

Erhard Altdorfer was a German Early Renaissance printmaker, painter, and architect, who worked as a court painter in Schwerin from 1512 until his death in 1561.

Erhard Altdorfer was the younger brother of Albrecht Altdorfer. Most likely, he was trained by his brother and it is believed they started a workshop together in 1506.

It is assumed Erhard Altdorfer worked in Austria at the Lambach Abbey, and in St Florian and Klosterneuburg around 1510. In 1512, he went to Schwerin where Duke Henry V of Mecklenburg-Schwerin appointed him court painter and architect. During a trip with the duke that year he probably came in contact with Lucas Cranach the Elder. A commission for the duke and Albert VII was an altarpiece in Sternberg, however destroyed by fire in 1741.

In 1533–34 his woodcuts appeared in Johannes Bugenhagen's Low German translation of the Bible printed in Lübeck by the printer and bookmaker Ludwig Dietz, a work for which he was rewarded with a house. Between 1546 and 1551, further construction projects were realized, projects of which remains virtually no traces, why one can have only vague ideas of their character.