Albrecht Durer, familiar with metal from his early training as a goldsmith, begins engraving copper plates in his twenties and rapidly develops a mastery of the technique. He is more unusual in tackling at the same period,the1490s,the much more mechanical craft of the woodcut (where each area of white in the image has to be scooped from the block of wood). But Duree's laege and compltely assuredwoodeutsimmediately dwmonstrate that this too can be an artist's mwdium