Melencolia (1514). Engraving. 24 x 19. Melencolia I is a 1514 engraving by the German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer. The print's central subject is an enigmatic and gloomy winged female figure thought to be a personification of melancholia. Holding her head in her hand, she stares past the busy scene in front of her. The area is strewn with symbols and tools associated with craft and carpentry, including an hourglass, weighing scales, a hand plane and a saw. Other objects relate to alchemy, geometry or numerology. Behind the figure is a structure with an embedded magic square, and a ladder leading beyond the frame. The sky contains a rainbow, a comet or planet, and a bat-like creature bearing the text that has become the print's title. Dürer's engraving is one of the most well-known extant old master prints, but, despite a vast art-historical literature, it has resisted any definitive interpretation. Dürer may have associated melancholia with creative activity; the woman may be a representation of a Muse, awaiting inspiration but fearful that it will not return. As such, Dürer may have intended the print as a veiled self-portrait. Other art historians see the figure as pondering the nature of beauty or the value of artistic creativity in light of rationalism, or as a purposely obscure work that highlights the limitations of allegorical or symbolic art. The art historian Erwin Panofsky, whose writing on the print has received the most attention, detailed its possible relation to Renassiance humanists' conception of melancholia. Summarizing its art-historical legacy, he wrote that the influence of Dürer's Melencolia I, the first representation in which the concept of melancholy was transplanted from the plane of scientific and pseudo-scientific folklore to the level of art, extended all over the European continent and lasted for more than three centuries. Melencolia I has been the subject of more scholarship than probably any other print. As the art historian Campbell Dodgson wrote in 1926, The literature on Melancholia is more extensive than that on any other engraving by Dürer: that statement would probably remain true if the last two words were omitted. Panofsky's studies in German and English, between 1923 and 1964 and sometimes with coauthors, have been especially influential. Melencolia I is one of Dürer's three Meisterstiche, along with Knight, Death and the Devil and St. Jerome in His Study. The prints are considered thematically related by some art historians, depicting labours that are intellectual, moral, or spiritual in nature. While Dürer sometimes distributed Melencolia I with St. Jerome in His Study, there is no evidence that he conceived of them as a thematic group. The print has two states; in the first, the number nine in the magic square appears backward, but in the second, more common impressions it is a somewhat odd-looking regular nine. There is little documentation to provide insight into Dürer's intent. He made a few pencil studies for the engraving and some of his notes relate to it. A commonly quoted note refers to the keys and the purse, Schlüssel, gewalt/pewtell, reichtum beteut, although this can be read as a simple record of their traditional symbolism. Another note reflects on the nature of beauty. In 1513 and 1514, Dürer experienced the death of a number of friends, followed by his mother, engendering a grief that may be expressed in this engraving. Dürer mentions melancholy only once in his surviving writings. In an unfinished book for young artists, he cautions that too much exertion may lead one to fall under the hand of melancholy. Panofsky considered but rejected the suggestion that the I in the title might indicate that Dürer had planned three other engravings on the four temperaments. He suggested instead that the I referred to the first of three types of melancholy defined by Cornelius Agrippa. Others see the I as a reference to nigredo, the first stage of the alchemical process. The winged, androgynous central figure is thought to be a personification of melancholia or geometry. She sits on a slab with a closed book on her lap, holds a compass loosely, and gazes intensely into the distance. Seemingly immobilized by gloom, she pays no attention to the many objects around her. Reflecting the medieval iconographical depiction of melancholy, she rests her head on a closed fist. Her face is relatively dark, indicating the accumulation of black bile, and she wears a wreath of watery plants. A set of keys and a purse hang from the belt of her long dress. Behind her, a windowless building with no clear architectural function rises beyond the top of the frame. A ladder with seven rungs leans against the structure, but neither its beginning nor end is visible.