Johann König, Last Judgement on alabaster, before 1632

Johann König, Depiction of the Last Judgement, painted on alabaster slab. Dimensions: 525x 537 mm. Location: Augsburg Cabinet, Gustavianum, Uppsala. Inventory number: UUK 66.

This image of the Last Judgment, painted on an alabaster, forms one side of a reversible door, framed in ebony, within the Ausgsburg cabinet of Gustavus Adolphus, now in the Gustavianum in Uppsala. On the other side of the slabe is a similar depiction of Moses leading the Chidren of Israel through the Red Sea, also by Johann König. A thumbnail of the image in situ can be found here.

Once again, there are multiple conceits in this single image. Rather than art imitating nature, nature appears to be imitating art. Stone -- the hardest and most immobile of elements, having sunk to the centre of the cosmos and been dug up from the darkness underground, into which the damned are being dragged -- is discovered to resemble clouds -- the lightest and most protean of phenomena, brightly illuminated by the rays of the sun, which will illuminate the blessed forever.  

Commentary. Howard Hotson (May 2018)