St. Jerome in His Study

The companion to Melencolia I, engraved in the same year, and its argument in reverse. Where melancholy sits paralysed among unused instruments, Jerome works: the light is warm, the lion and the dog are asleep, the room is in order.

The skull on the sill and the hourglass on the wall are the same memento mori that appear in the other plate. Here they do not interrupt the work.