Saint Anthony by Albrecht Durer Ring

Saint Anthony by Albrecht Durer, 1519, is a finely detailed copper engraving of the saint deep in meditation with his book and crucifix, behind him an intricate landscape of a city on a hilltop reflected in a lake. Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) was a German painter of the Northern Renaissance and also an engraver, printmaker, mathematician and theorist whose woodcut prints and theoretical treatises secured his reputation as one of the greatest artists of Europe. His many paintings, portraits, altarpieces, watercolors, and engravings were the first in the Northern Renaissance to use classical motifs from antiquity and the Italian Renaissance. The art of landscape painting began with his watercolors. Durer’s unparalleled skill in drawing and engraving as well as mastery of perspective allowed him rapid execution of a range of motifs which elicit universal admiration to this day.