# The Revelation of St John: 4. The Four Riders of the Apocalypse [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [DÜRER, Albrecht]() - Date: 1501-1550 - Technique: Woodcut, 399 x 286 mm ## Commentary The Revelation of St John: 4. The Four Riders of the Apocalypse 1497-98 Woodcut, 399 x 286 mm Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is the best known and most frequently referred to scene in the Apocalypse. After the opening of the first four seals \(Rev. 6, 1- 8\), the Horsemen enter the world and bring plague, war, hunger and death to mankind. The four horsemen are 1\) The \`conqueror' holding a bow; 2\) \`War' with. a sword; 3\) \`Famine' with a pair of scales; 4\) \`Death', on a \`sickly pale' horse, closely followed by Hades, a gaping jawed Leviathan. The horsemen have been variously interpreted. To the Middle Ages the first stood for Christ and the Church; but more commonly all four are seen as the agents of divine wrath. The group of riders, accompanied by an angel, thunders across mankind and does not appear to touch the ground. Finally, Hades, the hellish creature at the side of the Four Horsemen is swallowing everything in his enormous jaws that Death, the final rider, has passed. ## Related artworks - [A Young Girl of Cologne and Dürer's Wife]() - [Abduction of a Woman]() - [Abduction of Proserpine on a Unicorn]() - [Adam and Eve]() - [Adam and Eve]() - [Adam and Eve]() - [Adam and Eve]() - [Adam \(detail\)]() - [Adam]() - [Adoration of the Magi \(detail\)]() - [Adoration of the Magi \(detail\)]() - [Adoration of the Magi \(detail\)]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()