Saint Jerome in Penitence,

ca. 1496

Although he considered himself a painter first and foremost, Dürer acquired fame and fortune through his prints, six of which are devoted to Saint Jerome, whom the artist portrayed both as a scholar in his cozy study and as a penitent in the wilderness. In this large engraving, darkly inked lines evoke the bleakness of the rocky landscape, which is in part based on the artist’s carefully observed watercolor studies of the quarries near his native Nuremberg. At this early stage in his career, Dürer demonstrated his skill at rendering various textures, from crumbling rocks to the lion’s fur.