The Apocalyptic Woman

The Apocalyptic Woman by Albrecht Dürer is a powerful woodcut created between 1496 and 1498. This piece is a central component of Dürer’s renowned Apocalypse series, which fundamentally redefined printmaking in the late 15th century. Belonging squarely to the period of 1401 to 1500, this influential work helped solidify the transition of German art from the Gothic tradition into the emerging Renaissance style.

The work illustrates a dramatic passage from the Book of Revelation (12:1-4), depicting the Woman Clothed with the Sun standing upon the crescent moon, crowned with twelve stars. Below her, the seven-headed, ten-horned dragon waits, poised to devour her child. Dürer’s meticulous handling of the woodcut medium transformed what was previously often seen as a crude, popular art form into a vehicle for sophisticated artistic expression. He masterfully utilizes complex cross-hatching and dense line work to achieve intense shading and volumetric modeling, creating a sense of dramatic movement and texture rarely seen in prints of this era.

The publication of these dramatic prints marked Dürer’s initial rise to international fame. As a key figure in the German Renaissance, Dürer utilized the reproducibility of the woodcut to disseminate complex theological and artistic ideas rapidly across Europe. The profound artistry and immediate commercial success of this series ensured that copies and reproductions became widespread, guaranteeing Dürer’s influence far beyond his home city of Nuremberg. Today, this work continues to be highly studied, and due to its age and widespread ownership, many versions of Dürer’s masterful prints are considered part of the public domain. This specific impression of The Apocalyptic Woman is maintained within the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Art, where it serves as a foundational example of late 15th-century German graphic arts.