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Original fileThe Angel Pouring the Seventh Vial
The seventh vial
About This Work
This miniature features an angel in flight, depicted with blue wings and wearing a pink tunic over a white undergarment against a burnished gold background. The angel holds a conical vessel, pouring an energetic, orange-red stream downward toward a small, isolated cloud and a stylized walled city with orange roofs. The image is set within a rectangular frame above a block of Latin text in a Gothic script, beginning with an illuminated initial 'E'.
This illumination depicts a scene from the Book of Revelation (Apocalypse), specifically the outpouring of the vials of God's wrath. It is characteristic of the visual tradition associated with the Bamberg Apocalypse, a significant medieval manuscript containing the text of Revelation.
Inscriptions(Latin)
Et venit unus de septem angelis qui habebant septem fialas et locutus est mecum dicens. Veni ostendam tibi damnationem meretricis magne que sedet super aquas multas. cum qua fornicati sunt reges terrae. et inebriati sunt qui habitant terram de vino prostitutionis eius. Et abstulit me in desertum in spiritu. Et vidi mulierem sedentem super bestiam coccineam. plenam nominibus blasphemie. habentem capita VII. et cornua decem. Et mulier erat circum
Translation
And there came one of the seven angels, who had the seven vials, and spoke with me, saying: Come, I will shew thee the condemnation of the great harlot, who sitteth upon many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication; and they who inhabit the earth, have been made drunk with the wine of her whoredom. And he took me away in spirit into the desert. And I saw a woman sitting upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads, and ten horns. And the woman was... [fragmentary, continuing text of Revelation 17:1-4]
Connected Texts
Book of Revelation
The image illustrates the pouring of the vials of wrath described in Revelation 16-17.
Collections
Provenance & Source
Object
illumination
parchment
Medieval
German
manuscript-illumination
Digital Source
Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
822 × 1138 px
Linked Data