Albrecht Dürer and St Eustace

A suitable legend for Albrecht Durer to portray to advocate animal rights and promote the status of wildlife, at the stance where the animal becomes the ethereal force over men.

Dürer's portrayal of the story of St Eustace, a Roman general who converted to Christianity upon seeing a vision of Christ between the antlers of the Stag he was hunting. Perhaps an example of the "nobly antlered stag" in the "Sacred chase," where the hunter is drawn by the quarry that leads him to his encounter with a divinity and ultimately to his conversion.

The picture shows St. Eustace kneeling in front of his horse and the mighty stag with a cross between his antlers while his five hunting dogs stay still in the foreground.