A little-known collector and the early reception of Durer's self-portraits

A document in the Stadtbibliothek, Nuremberg, provides evidence that the collector Georg Romer owned a self-portrait by Albrecht Durer in the 1550s. He seems to have made a life-time bequest of the work to the city, perhaps to encourage the formation of a gallery of famous artists that would parallel his commission of the first German collection of artists' lives.