The Last Judgment (c. 1526): Art, History and Details

The Last Judgment (c. 1526) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Hans Holbein the Younger (German, active England and Switzerland, 1497/98–1543).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the 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.

Object facts

• Title: The Last Judgment
• Date: c. 1526
• Creator attribution: Hans Holbein the Younger (German, active England and Switzerland, 1497/98–1543)
• Culture: Germany
• Type: Print
• Technique: woodcut
• Dimensions: Sheet: 7 x 4.6 cm (2 3/4 x 1 13/16 in.)
• Collection: PR - Woodcut
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1929.170

Collection credit

Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland

Further reading listed by the museum

• "Woodcuts: Dance of Death Series by Hans Holbein the Younger." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 16, no. 8 (October 1929): 141-151.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.