Angel with the Key to the Bottomless Pit, from the Apocalypse series

Description

Angel with the Key to the Bottomless Pit is a 1497–98 woodcut by Albrecht Dürer from his Apocalypse cycle. Its subject brings together the confinement of evil and the promise of a renewed world. The angel’s key becomes a sign of authority, turning an ordinary object into the instrument of a visionary event.

The scene belongs to the closing passages of the Book of Revelation, where Satan is bound and John is shown the New Jerusalem. These linked subjects give the image a different emphasis from the destruction seen elsewhere in the series: restraint and a future order take the place of uncontained catastrophe. Angel with the Key to the Bottomless Pit draws the cycle toward resolution, using a concrete encounter to express the relationship between divine power, judgment and hope.