Illustration to the Apocalypse

This is one of the twenty-four engravings illustrating the Apocalypse. The set was published at Lyons in 1561, but the first plate, with a self-portrait of the artist, bears the date 1555, and others may well have been executed before this time. In these compositions Duvet borrows extensively from D�rer’s woodcuts of 1498, and it could even be said that his whole project is based on that of his predecessor.

With the Duvet’s illustrations to the Apocalypse, we are confronted with the works of a religious mystic which sweep us at once into a world which is far removed from the Court of Fontainebleau and carry us back in some ways into the Middle Ages.