Revelation of St. John: The Four Destroying Angels

Dürer · 1511
The Cleveland Museum of Art

This woodcut of the Apocalypse was cut around 1496–98; the impression is from the 1511 edition.

At the top God sits above the golden altar, whose four horns Dürer drew as heads, and the sixth angel blows his trumpet. Below, the four angels set free at the Euphrates swing their swords over a mass of people, while a cavalry of riders on lion-headed horses charges through the sky.

From the text

A voice from the four horns of the golden altar (Revelation 9:13)

The four angels bound at the Euphrates released (Revelation 9:14–15)

Horses with heads “like the heads of lions”, fire coming from their mouths (Revelation 9:17)

The artist’s own

The altar’s horns as four heads that speak

A pope and an emperor among those struck down

Details

The altar

Four little heads sit at the corners of the altar.

The sixth angel

An angel in a rich patterned robe blows a long trumpet.

The riders

Armoured riders on lion-headed horses breathing fire.

The four angels

Winged angels swing swords over a crowd of fallen people.

Albrecht Dürer, German, 1471–1528. The Cleveland Museum of Art (Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland, 1922.94.10) · Woodcut · Cleveland Museum of Art Open Access: Collection API record "share_license_status": "CC0" (Creative Commons Zero, https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/).

The verses

Rev 9:13–19Then the sixth angel sounded his trumpet, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar before God saying to the sixth angel with the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” So the four angels who had been prepared for this hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind. And the number of mounted troops was two hundred million; I heard their number. Now the horses and riders in my vision looked like this: The riders had breastplates the colors of fire, sapphire, and sulfur. The heads of the horses were like the heads of lions, and out of their mouths proceeded fire, smoke, and sulfur. A third of mankind was killed by the three plagues of fire, smoke, and sulfur that proceeded from their mouths. For the power of the horses was in their mouths and in their tails; indeed, their tails were like snakes, having heads with which to inflict harm.