The Four Horsemen
Virgil Solis, 1565 · Revelation 6:1
The passage
And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.
Revelation 6:1
About this woodcut
Four riders in the sky, all moving to the right. The first has a bow drawn, the second swings a sword, the third holds a pair of scales, and the last is a skeleton. Under their hooves the cloud is full of falling people.
They are drawn as one charge rather than four separate figures, which is closer to the text than the usual reading: the seals are opened one after another, but what they release arrives together. The scales in the third rider hand are a merchant balance, the sort used to weigh grain.
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