The Lamb Receiving the Sealed Book, folio C from The Apocalypse
1460/70
Medium
Blockbook woodcut hand-colored with brush, stencil and watercolor with additions in pen and brown ink on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
Image/block: 25.5 × 19.5 cm (10 1/16 × 7 11/16 in.); Sheet: 27.4 × 20.8 cm (10 13/16 × 8 1/4 in.)
Classification
woodcut
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
36063
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
The Apocalyptic Lamb of God in the lower roundel enraged an early viewer. Perhaps inspired by the crown of seven stubby horns and the seven eyes on the Lamb’s head, this unknown individual added a cluster of four semicircles just beneath its tail. The result seems blasphemous and rather juvenile, as the shapes resemble a series of turds spewing downward. Excrement became a common theme in Germany during the Reformation due to Martin Luther’s colorful rhetoric, and frequently appeared in satirica...