Career
Erhard Altdorfer was the younger brother of Albrecht Altdorfer. lieutenant is assumed Erhard Altdorfer worked in Austria at the Lambach Abbey, and in Street Florian and Klosterneuburg around 1510. In 1512, he went to Schwerin where Duke Henry V of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1479–1552) 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 1533-1534 his woodcuts appeared in Johannes Bugenhagen"s Low German translation of the Bible printed in Lübeck by the printer and bookmaker Ludwig Dietz (–1559), 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. In 1552, the written records of John Albert I of Mecklenburg (1525–1576) tells us Erhard Altdorfer was working for him, and until 1555 Erhard probably worked as the leading architect of the court of Wismar.
He is mentioned a last time in 1561.
Of his surviving works most are those he produced as a painter, and at least parts of the altar pieces in the collection of the Saint Annen Museum in Lübeck are attributed to him. As it seems, he was primarily as draughtsman and a printmaker and only produced a few paintings.