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The Horsemen on Fire-Breathing Horses

Creator

Unknown All works by this person →More on Getty ULAN

Date: about 1255–1260
Medium: Tempera colors, gold leaf, colored washes, pen and ink
Culture: English
Department: Manuscripts
Institution: Getty Museum
Object ID: 9d450d63-8f3b-4a52-8064-5f4ae600a4b0

From the Getty Museum record

Saint John describes the warriors summoned to help kill a third of the earth's people as wearing "breastplates of fire and of hyacinth and of brimstone." The description of the scene continues, "and the heads of the horses were like the heads of lions: and from their mouths proceeded fire, and smoke, and sulphur." (Apocalypse 9:17) The horses kill off multitudes with their mouths and tails, with the bodies and myriad heads of their victims littering the ground beneath the horses' trampling hooves. The entire image conveys a sense of the army's merciless power.

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