3-084-810 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

The Preparation of the Cross: Christ Resting, Christ Being Nailed to the Cross, and Erection of the Cross, c1510-1520. Left: Christ is nailed to the cross. Centre: the cross is hauled upright. Right: Christ sits on the cross as workmen complete it. In the foreground: a game of dice for Christ's clothes. Mary and her women appear in the distance. This unusual combination of three Passion scenes in one painting invites the viewer to let their eye roam as he reflects on Christ's suffering and meditates on the events that brought about salvation. Remarkably, the painting is divided stylistically into two parts: the foreground and middle ground correspond to mid-fifteenth-century representations of the subject in the manner of the Karlsruhe Passion, while the background resembles the Upper Rhenish painting style of around 1510/20. This panel was probably intended to complement - or imitate - existing older works.