The Work
Doré's Angel with the Key to the Abyss (from La Sainte Bible, 1866) depicts the apocalyptic vision of Revelation 20 with his characteristic mastery of vertiginous scale and dramatic contrast. The angel descends from heaven holding a great chain and key, the bottomless pit opening below, as Satan is bound for the millennial period. The plate was central to 19th-century debates about millennial interpretation.
Biblical Source
Revelation 20:1-3 - "And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years" - provides the precise visual program. The angel, the chain, the key, the abyss, the bound figure of Satan - all these elements are specified in the text and realized in the engraving.
Artist and Iconography
Doré's compositional genius is fully deployed in this plate: the angel's descending figure is placed against a vertiginous depth of darkness, the abyss rendered as a bottomless well that draws the eye downward. The chained serpent-figure of Satan is reduced in scale by the overwhelming depth of the visual space. The drama of supernatural power - an angel subduing a cosmic enemy - is rendered with a convincing visual scale that made this plate one of the most reproduced images from the Doré Bible.