Pentecost, from "The Small Passion"

Pentecost, from "The Small Passion" is a definitive woodcut created by Albrecht Dürer in 1510. This dramatic print belongs to Dürer's celebrated series detailing the life and passion of Christ, a project specifically intended for wider distribution across Europe. The print is currently housed in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

The scene depicts the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and the Virgin Mary, as described in the biblical account of Pentecost. A large group of Men and Women are gathered reverently within a grand, vaulted architectural space, symbolizing the nascent Church and emphasizing the hierarchical structure of the moment. Above them, the Holy Spirit manifests as a dove surrounded by tongues of fire, illuminating the faces of the figures below and signifying the bestowal of divine grace and language. Dürer masterfully utilizes the woodcut medium to achieve remarkable detail and texture, despite the constraints of the relief process.

The technical precision displayed in the architecture and the individualized expressions of the figures helped solidify Dürer’s reputation as the preeminent German Renaissance artist and guaranteed the commercial success of his prints. As part of the immensely popular “Small Passion” series, the Pentecost print demonstrated Dürer’s commitment to making complex theology accessible through detailed imagery for both private devotion and collective study. Due to the age and widespread distribution of the image, many high-quality impressions of this work are today widely accessible through public domain archives, allowing modern audiences to study the unparalleled line work achieved by Dürer in the early sixteenth century.