The Ascension

Albrecht Dürer · ca. 1510
The Met, New York

The Ascension in Dürer’s Small Passion, cut about 1510, is shown in an old way: only the feet and the hem of the robe are still visible below the cloud.

The apostles kneel and stand round a small hilltop, looking up. A woman in a hood stands among them at the left, and on the hilltop two footprints are left in the ground.

From the text

A cloud hiding him from their sight (Acts 1:9)

The apostles looking intently into the sky (Acts 1:10)

The artist’s own

The footprints on the hill — a tradition of the Mount of Olives, not told in Acts

Mary among the apostles, as painters often showed her (Acts 1:14 names her with them afterwards)

Details

In the cloud

Only his feet and the hem of his robe show below the cloud.

Footprints

Two footprints are left on the hilltop.

Mary

A woman in a hood stands among the apostles.

Looking up

The apostles look up into the sky.

Albrecht Dürer, German, 1471–1528. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Gift of Junius Spencer Morgan, 1919; acc. 19.73.204) · Woodcut · Public Domain — The Met Open Access (CC0). The Met Collection API record: "isPublicDomain": true; The Met marks such works on its website "with the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) icon".

The verses

Acts 1:9–11After He had said this, they watched as He was taken up, and a cloud hid Him from their sight. They were looking intently into the sky as He was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen Him go into heaven.”

Luke 24:50–51When Jesus had led them out as far as Bethany, He lifted up His hands and blessed them. While He was blessing them, He left them and was carried up into heaven.