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Lot Essay
Stylistic analysis and comparison with precursors suggest that The Seven Angels with the Trumpets is the earliest of Dürer's spectacular woodcuts illustrating Saint John's Apocalypse. It is the most crowded composition within the series and appears to borrow a number of details from the illustrations of the Quentell Bible, printed in Cologne in 1480, while the eagle crying 'woe' at the centre of the image is clearly derived from the Bible of the Strasbourg printer Johann Grüninger of 1485.
Dürer's woodcut depicts the moment after the Lamb has opened the seventh seal and silence dominated Heaven for half an hour. A vision of God is shown distributing the trumpets to the angels, and the first four trumpets sound over a landscape beset by catastrophe: a star falls on the left, the sea and the earth are burning.
The present impression is from the rare German Text Edition of 1498, which presumably preceded the printing of the Latin Text Edition of the same year.
Dürer's woodcut depicts the moment after the Lamb has opened the seventh seal and silence dominated Heaven for half an hour. A vision of God is shown distributing the trumpets to the angels, and the first four trumpets sound over a landscape beset by catastrophe: a star falls on the left, the sea and the earth are burning.
The present impression is from the rare German Text Edition of 1498, which presumably preceded the printing of the Latin Text Edition of the same year.