The Martyrdom of Saint John, from "The Apocalypse"

Albrecht Dürer

1511 · Woodcut · Drawings and Prints

The subject of this first print from the Apocalypse series is not contained in the book of Revelation, but Dürer included it to identify Saint John as its author. According to The Golden Legend, a collection of stories of the saints’ lives compiled in the Middle Ages, John was brought to Rome by the emperor Domitian and condemned to die in a cauldron of boiling oil for refusing to renounce his faith. Dürer shows him sitting naked in the bath as an executioner fans the flames with a bellows while another pours boiling oil over the saint’s body. Domitian is seated to the left of the saint, dressed as a Turkish sultan, an enemy of Dürer’s Holy Roman Empire.

Artist

Albrecht Dürer

Date

1511

Medium

Woodcut

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Gift of Junius Spencer Morgan, 1919