Four Avenging Angels of Euphrates

circa 1497
Original woodcut trimmed to the borderline with Dürer's monogram signature

Plate from the series, "The Apocalypse" from the 1498 German text edition, with German text on the verso. Catalogue reference: Strauss 49; Bartsch 69; Meder 171

The sixth angel blew his trumpet: and I heard a voice from the four corners of the golden alter which is before God, saying to the sixth angel who held the trumpet: set free the four angels who are bound by the great river Euphrates. And the four angels were set free, they who were ready for the hour and the day and the month and the year, to kill a third part of mankind. And the number of the cavalry was twenty thousand times ten thousand, I heard their number. And thus I say in my vision the horses and their riders, wearing breastplates colored red as fire, dark blue and yellow as sulphur; and the heads of the horses were like the heads of lions, and out of their mouths issued fire, smoke and sulphur. By these three plagues: fire, smoke and sulphur, which issued from their mouths, a third of mankind was killed. For the power of the horses is in their mouths and their tails; for their tails are like serpents, and have heads, and with them they did harm. (Revelations 9-19).