Detail of 'The Feast of the Rosary' showing Dürer's self portrait with beard and long...

on the scroll are the words 'Exegit Quinque Mestri Spatio Albertus Durer Germanus MDVI' ( Albrecht Dürer, a German, produced it in the span of five months in 1506); also depicted are putti setting crowns of roses on the congregation; on the lower left is the hand of the Virgin Mary setting a garland on the head of the German emperor designate, Maximilian I (1459-1519); known in France as 'La Vierge de la Fête du Rosaire (Virgin of the Feast of the Rosary); commissioned in Venice by the German merchants of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi for their chapel in the Church of San Bartolomeo as a depiction of the 'Brotherhood of the Rosary';