Dürer
«Melencolia»

In Dürer’s lifetime, two major innovations emerged from his own city: Martin Behaim constructed the first globe in 1492, and Peter Henlein built the first egg-shaped pocket-watch with a spring mechanism, the so-called «Nuremberg Egg» in 1510. Both devices—the watch and the globe—served to further understand and represent the environment with more precision, using numbers, measurements and divisions. These innovations characterize the scientific outlook that prevails at the dawn of the modern age.(...) Even the «Melencolia» etching reflects these interests. Here Dürer captured an entire series of measuring instruments: hour-glass, sundial and hourly chimes, as well as the scale and straight-edge.

Source: Rose-Marie and Rainer Hagen. Meisterwerke europäischer Kunst - als Dokumente ihrer Zeit erklärt, Cologne 1984, p.84 photo.