SAINT JEROME SEATED NEAR A POLLARD WILLOW
by Albrecht Dürer
1512
drypoint 21 x 18 cm
In
the fourth century A.D., Saint Jerome renounced his passion for ancient
Greek and Latin literature in favor of the Bible and an ascetic, Christian
life. He spent many years translating the Old and New Testaments into Latin,
and Dürer shows him in a mood of intellectual and religious intensity, seated
with his books in a harsh landscape. The lion sleeping at his feet became
his lifelong companion after Saint Jerome pulled a thorn from the animal’s
paw.
Dürer excelled in the uncommon medium of drypoint, in which a sharp metal instrument is used to scratch lines directly into the copper plate from which the image will be printed. This process raises, along the incised line, a ragged edge of copper called burr that holds ink and thus gives softness and depth to the print’s tonal range. Because the burr is very delicate and usually wears away after fewer than twenty printings of the plate, drypoint impressions of this superb quality are extremely rare.
Dürer excelled in the uncommon medium of drypoint, in which a sharp metal instrument is used to scratch lines directly into the copper plate from which the image will be printed. This process raises, along the incised line, a ragged edge of copper called burr that holds ink and thus gives softness and depth to the print’s tonal range. Because the burr is very delicate and usually wears away after fewer than twenty printings of the plate, drypoint impressions of this superb quality are extremely rare.