Probably the newly married couple dwelt at the house of the elder Dürer during the first years of their union. In 1494 Albert was admitted to the guild of painters, submitting a pen-drawing of Orpheus and the Bacchantes as his test of ability; and at about the same time he drew the "Bacchanal" and "The Battle of the Tritons," which are now at Vienna. Herein he showed the contemporary classical tendency of art, which he so soon outgrew. About this same time he designed a frontispiece for the Latin poem which Dr. Ulsen had written about the pestilence which was devastating Nuremberg, showing a ghastly and repulsive man covered with plague-boils. The portrait of Dürer's father, in oil-colors, which is now at Frankfort, was also executed during this year. Dürer's first copper-plate engraving dates from 1497, and represents four naked women, under a globe bearing the initials of "_O Gott Hilf_," or "O God, help," while human bones strew the floor, and a flaming devil appears in the background. During the next three years the master made twenty copper-plate engravings. The composition of "St. Jerome's Penance" shows the noble old ascetic kneeling alone in a rocky wilderness, beating his naked breast with a stone, and gazing at a crucifix, while the symbolical lion lies beside him. "The Penance of St. John Chrysostom" depicts the long-bearded saint expiating his guilt in seducing and slaying the princess by crawling about on all-fours like a beast. She is seen at the mouth of a rocky cave, nursing her child. "The Prodigal Son" is another tender and exquisitely finished copper-plate engraving, in which the yearning and prayerful Prodigal, bearing the face of Dürer, is kneeling on bare knees by the trough at which a drove of swine are feeding. In the background is a group of substantial German farm-buildings, with unconcerned domestic animals and fowls. "The Rape of Amymone" shows a gloomy Triton carrying off a very ugly woman from the midst of her bathing Danaide sisters. "The Dream" portrays an obese German soundly sleeping by a great stove, with a foolish-faced naked Venus and a winged Cupid standing by his side, and a little demon blowing in his ear. "The Love Offer" is made by an ugly old man to a pretty maiden, whose waist is encircled by his arm, while her hand is greedily outstretched to receive the money which he offers. Another early engraving on copper shows a wild and naked man holding an unspeakably ugly woman, who is endeavoring to tear herself from his arms. Still others delineate Justice sitting on a lion, "The Little Fortune" standing naked on a globe, and the monstrous hog of Franconia. It was chiefly through his engravings that Dürer became and remains known to the world; and by the same mode of expression he boldly showed forth the doubts and despairs, yearnings and conflicts, not only of his own pure and sorrowful soul, but also of Europe, quivering in the throes of the Reformation.