Durer Completes His Master Engravings

What happened

Working in Nuremberg, Albrecht Durer produced, between 1513 and 1514, the three copperplate engravings later called his Meisterstiche, or master engravings: Knight, Death and the Devil, Saint Jerome in His Study, and Melencolia I. Each was engraved on a similarly large plate and demonstrated Durer's technical command of the burin, the tool used to cut lines directly into the metal, achieving a range of tonal effects that print connoisseurs still study. Durer had spent years blending the precise, detailed realism of Northern European painting with the proportion and classical balance he studied in Italian art, and over his career he produced more than 300 prints in total.

How we know

Impressions of all three master engravings survive in major print collections, including the Royal Collection Trust and the World History Encyclopedia's account of Durer's career, both of which date the group to 1513-1514 from the plates and Durer's own travel diary references to them.

Sources

• Royal Collection Trust. A Knight, Death and the Devil · General sourcerct.uk · Cited as a "reference" source (no stronger domain match).
• World History Encyclopedia. Albrecht Durer · Reputable sourceworldhistory.org · The domain "worldhistory.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)