The famous Baumgärtner altar-piece was painted for the patrician family of that name, as a votive picture, in thanksgiving for the safe return of its knightly members from the Swiss campaigns. Nuremberg unwillingly surrendered it to Maximilian of Bavaria, and it is now in the Munich Pinakothek. It consists of a central picture of "The Nativity," of no special merit, with two wings, the first of which shows Stephen Baumgärtner, a meagre-faced and resolute knight, in the character of St. George, while the other portrays the plain-mannered and practical Lucas Baumgärtner, in the garb of St. Eustachius. These excellent portrait-figures are clad in armor, and stand by the sides of their horses. The "Vision of St. Eustachius" was executed on copper-plate, and is one of Dürer's most delicate and beautiful works. It shows the huntsman Eustachius as a strong and earnest German mystic, kneeling before the miraculous crucifix set in the stag's forehead, which has appeared to convict him of his sins, and to stimulate in him that faith by which he led a new life of prayer and praise, and won a martyr's crown. His solemn-faced horse seems to realize that a miracle is taking place; and in the foreground are five delicately drawn hounds. On the steep hill in the rear a noble and picturesque mediæval castle rears its battlemented towers above long lines of cliffs. Tradition says that the face of Eustachius is a portrait of the Emperor Maximilian. When the Emperor Rudolph secured the original plate of the engraving, he had it richly gilded. "The Great Fortune," or "The Nemesis," is a copper-plate showing a repulsively ugly naked woman, with wings, holding a rich chalice and a bridle, while on the earth below is a beautiful mountain village between two confluent rivers. Sandrart says that this is the Hungarian village of Eytas, where Dürer's father was born; but there is no proof of this theory. "The Coat-of-Arms with the Cock" is a fine copper-plate, with some obscure allegorical significance, representing, perhaps, Vigilance by the cock which stands on a closed helmet, and Faith by the rampant lion on the shield below. CHAPTER V. St. Jerome.--The Melencolia.--Death of Dürer's Mother.--Raphael. --Etchings.--Maximilian's Arch.--Visit to Augsburg. The copper-plate engraving of "St. Jerome in his Chamber" was executed in 1514, and is one of Dürer's three greatest works, a marvel of brilliancy and beauty, full of accurate detail and minute perfection. The saint has a grand and venerable head, firmly outlined against a white halo, and is sitting in a cheerful monastic room, lighted by the sun streaming through two large arched windows, while he writes at his desk, translating the Scriptures. In the foreground the lion of St. Jerome is drowsing, alongside a fat watch-dog; a huge pumpkin hangs from one of the oaken beams overhead; and patristic tomes and convenient German utensils are scattered about the room.