Ashmolean The Elements of Drawing, John Ruskin’s teaching collection at Oxford

The worn state of the block, the text of the colophon on the verso, which begins 'Impressa denuo Nurnberge', and the additional copyright notice below it, indicate that this impression was made for the second Latin edition, issued by Dürer in 1511.

The Whore of Babylon sits upon the beast with seven heads and ten horns, holding up the cup full of abominations (Revelations XVII.1-6). To the left stand a group of expensively-dressed men and women, the 'merchants of the earth' who lamented the destruction of Babylon (XVIII.11-16), together with a Dominican friar. Behind the whore, the city of Babylon burns. Above, in the sky, are two angels, one of whom holds a millstone (XVIII.21); on the left, an army appears amongst the clouds, led by the figure called 'Faithful and True' on his white horse (XIX.11-16). The print was no. 13 in Dürer's famous "Apocalpyse" series.

Ruskin first catalogued this print in 1870, when it appeared as no. 40 in the Educational Series in the "Catalogue of Examples", representing 'the worship of false pleasure', and accompanied by no. 39 (now WA.RS.RUD.069), "Saint John sees the Seven Lamps", which represented 'the worship of false wealth and intellect'. By the following year, the two prints had changed position, this one being no. 31 F and the "Seven Lamps" being 31 G in the first catalogue of the Educational Series. They were placed, alongside other Dürers and Holbeins, in Case III, "Illustrations of Northern Gothic, with its resultant Art". In 1872, the "Seven Lamps" had been moved to no. 69 in the Rudimentary Series, whilst by 1874 this print had been moved to Case V, "Elementary Illustrations of Landscape" (Educational catalogue, 2nd ed., no. 125).

Ruskin wrote about both prints at some length in the "Catalogue of Examples", telling his students to study every line of them, because of the great variety of subjects and wood-cutting technique within them, and the ways they embodied Dürer's power to depict human character and emotion, and also his 'wild fancy'. He claimed that the group of merchants indicated 'the contentment of men of the world in a religion which at that time permitted them to retain their pride and evil pleasures', whilst the friar expressed 'the superstition which could not be disturbed by any evidence of increasing sin in the body of the Church'.

The 'fantasy and fever' of Dürer's "Apocalypse" was a result of a typically northern 'strange fear and melancholy' which 'took ... a feverish and frantic tendency towards the contemplation of death' and 'brought a bitter mockery and low grotesque into ... art' ("Abbeville" Catalogue, § 24 = XIX.260). The grotesqueness of the dragons depicted with the series was 'of the ghastly kind which best illustrates the nature of death and sin' (The Stones of Venice, vol. III, ch. 3, § 53 = XI.172).