Which German artist created the engraving 'Melencolia I'?

Albrecht Dürer created the engraving Melencolia I. Made in 1514, it is one of the best-known prints of the German Renaissance and shows a winged female figure sitting in apparent dejection amid tools, geometric objects, and enigmatic symbols.

The image is often linked to Renaissance ideas about melancholy, a temperament traditionally associated with intellectual and artistic greatness as well as sadness or paralysis. The figure holds her head in her hand while an hourglass, scales, hammer, saw, hand plane, and magic square surround her. A ladder rises behind her, and a bat-like creature carries the title in the sky.

Its meaning remains unsettled. Scholars have connected the print with creative frustration, geometry, alchemy, numerology, and the limits of human knowledge. The title’s Roman numeral I has also prompted theories that Dürer planned a series, though no definitive explanation survives. The work is an engraving, not a painting or a woodcut—a distinction sometimes missed in general descriptions of Dürer.