Albrecht Dürer may not have written Lament on Luther, finds study

Research suggests elegy on arrest of Protestant reformer was the work not of the German artist but of a monk

It has been described as “one of the greatest spontaneous prayers in world literature”, but Albrecht Dürer’s elegy on the arrest of Martin Luther, the Protestant reformer, may not have been written by the German painter, printmaker and writer after all, research suggests.

Considered one of Dürer’s best-known writings, the Lament on Luther could instead have been the work of a contemporary monk that was slipped into the artist’s diary, possibly for political reasons, according to what the National Gallery describes as “very convincing evidence”.

Dürer’s Journeys: Travels of a Renaissance Artist, the Credit Suisse exhibition, runs from 6 March to 13 June.