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The Last Judgment
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
In this final, dramatic episode in Hans Holbein’s Dance of Death series Christ sits on high, surrounded by heavenly figures, poised to send the resurrected dead to their ultimate destinations of heaven or hell. The end of humanity’s time on Earth connects with its beginnings: bodies here are as naked and vulnerable as those of Adam and Eve at the Creation. Awakened from their graves and reanimated, the dead raise their hands beseechingly to Christ. Those judged to have lived virtuously will go to their resurrection, a sort of spiritual rebirth in heaven, while the sinful face eternal torment.
Cleveland Museum of Art’s own descriptionCredit lineDance of Death:: The Last Judgment, c. 1526. Hans Holbein the Younger (German, active England and Switzerland, 1497/98–1543). Woodcut; sheet: 7 x 4.6 cm (2 3/4 x 1 13/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland, 1929.170
