page_title: Jean Duvet
section_title: The Apocalypse series
hierarchical_section_title: Jean Duvet / Works / The Apocalypse series
caption_attribution_description: Frontispiece of the Apocalypse, 1555 Jean Duvet (French, 1485–ca. 1561) Engraving; 11 7/8 x 8 1/2 in. (30.2 x 21.6 cm)
context_page_description: Jean Duvet was a French Renaissance goldsmith and engraver, now best known for his engravings. He was the first significant French printmaker. He produced about seventy-three known plates, that convey a highly personal style, often compared to that of William Blake, with very crowded compositions, a certain naive quality, and intense religious feeling. According to Henri Zerner, his work has a "freedom and immediacy that have no equivalent in Renaissance printmaking". A degree of mystery surrounds his biography, as there is disagreement as to whether or not he was the Jean Duvet from Dijon who spent sixteen years in the militantly Calvinist city-state of Geneva.
context_section_description: His most famous works are his series of twenty-three engravings on the Apocalypse, the frontispiece of which (above) is dated 1555.  They borrow heavily from the famous series in woodcut of Albrecht Dürer (1498) but are very different in style - crowded, even confused, but urgent and intense.  Eight of the series derive their composition in some way from Dürer.  This was published, with the accompanying text, in Lyon in 1561.  Like many of his mature prints these use a round-topped shape.  The frontispiece has the Latin inscriptions: "Jean Duvet goldsmith of Langres aged 70 made these histories 1555" (on the plate on the table) and "The Fates are pressing, already sight fails, the mind remains victorious, and the great work is completed" (by the swan), suggesting this was last of the series to be completed.
caption: Frontispiece to the Apocalypse series, 1555.
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