ALBRECHT DÜRER (1471-1528)
ALBRECHT DÜRER (1471-1528)
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ALBRECHT DÜRER (1471-1528)

The Seven Angels with the Trumpets, from: The Apocalypse

Details
ALBRECHT DÜRER (1471-1528)
The Seven Angels with the Trumpets, from: The Apocalypse
woodcut
circa 1497-98
on laid paper, without watermark
a fine, strong and even impression from the German text edition of 1498
printing with great clarity and contrasts
with narrow margins or trimmed to or just inside the borderline in places
some printer's creases in the upper subject
generally in good condition
Block 393 x 281 mm.
Sheet 394 x 283 mm.
Literature
Bartsch 68; Meder, Hollstein 170; Schoch Mende Scherbaum 118
Exhibited
Private US Collection; inherited by the present owner in 2017.

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Stefano Franceschi
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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.

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