The Four Horsemen, from The Apocalypse — About This Work
Albrecht Dürer, c. 1498
About the Work
Dürer made The Four Horsemen for his Apocalypse, the ambitious series of full-page woodcuts he published in 1498. The project was remarkable both for its scale and for Dürer’s unusually direct control over its publication, helping establish the print as a major artistic medium rather than merely an illustration subordinate to text.
The image compresses the opening of the first four seals in the Book of Revelation into a single rushing charge. Death, Famine and War surge forward with the bow-bearing first horseman while figures are crushed beneath the horses. Dürer intensifies the movement through repeated diagonals, windblown drapery and tightly packed forms, making the riders seem to burst through the picture rather than proceed across it.
Woodcut normally depends on strong contrasts of black and white, but here Dürer also creates remarkable tonal variety through dense parallel and crossing lines. The result combines graphic force with intricate detail. Cleveland’s impression is without text on the reverse, a format the museum notes was often associated with especially fine impressions of the series.
The Work
Artist: Albrecht Dürer
Title: The Four Horsemen, from The Apocalypse
Date: c. 1498
Medium: Woodcut
Recorded dimensions: 40 cm high × 28.8 cm wide
Sheet: 28.8 × 40 cm
Collection: Cleveland Museum of Art
Accession number: 1932.313
Print & Presentation
Palatine presentation: 40 × 50 cm portrait frame.
The complete artwork is reproduced at its recorded scale, subject only to negligible whole-pixel rounding, without enlargement, reduction, cropping or distortion. The surrounding white presentation area accommodates the artwork within the framed presentation and is incorporated into the print rather than added as a separate mount.
Frame finishes: Black, White or Natural.
Paper & glazing: Enhanced Matte + Perspex; Enhanced Matte + Moth-Eye.
Why Original Scale?
Most art-print shops offer the same image in a choice of Small, Medium and Large sizes. We take a different approach. For each edition, we begin with the recorded dimensions of the original work and reproduce the complete image at that scale, preserving its proportions and avoiding enlargement, reduction, cropping or distortion.
Source: Image: The Cleveland Museum of Art, CC0.
Care: Display in a dry interior away from prolonged direct sunlight and sources of moisture.
Notes from Palatine
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