Children are inquisitive. Often, even happy endings of fairy tales do not satisfy them — they keep wondering, ‘And what happened next?’ When they see a portrait of a child, they ask, ‘What happened next to this boy (or girl)?’ We are going to speak of what became of the young characters of famous artistic works. Most of them lived a fortunate, or at least bright, life. Arthive has selected some…

From time to time, one cannot help but feel perplexed at the sight of four laconic letters ‘Anon’ that should denote the authorship of a certain painting of old. A little more satisfying is the inscription ‘Master of’ — followed by some German or Flemish town or an altar of some saint. Opening a list of artists from the 13th–15th centuries, one would find the letter ‘M’ in abundance — not…

Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) was the first artist in German art history, and in European art history as a whole, who started creating self-portraits. Viewed in chronological order, they form a unique history of the human self-discovery, the cognition of nature and God.