Altarpiece with The Passion of Christ (c. 1440s): Art, History and Details

Altarpiece with The Passion of Christ (c. 1440s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Master of the Schlägl Altarpiece (German).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The visual focus of this altarpiece is the suffering and death of Christ on the cross. So-called Passion cycles in art include the events leading up to and following the Crucifixion, not only as single subjects but as scenes meant to be read in sequence. Passion cycles were promoted by the two great teaching orders, the Franciscans and the Dominicans, for whom this subject represented the main religious drama of their churches, and also by the German mystics who advocated private contemplation on the humanity and suffering of Christ. The original context for this altarpiece remains unknown, but it was probably made for a religious institution in Westphalia in the Rhine Valley. During the 1870s it was given to the Abbey of Schlägl, near Linz in Upper Austria, from which both altarpiece and artist take their names. The altarpiece is not preserved today in its original format, and some of the individual scenes are missing. Scholars continue to debate the original number of scenes and their sequencing; nine of the original panels have survived.

Object facts

• Title: Altarpiece with The Passion of Christ
• Date: c. 1440s
• Creator attribution: Master of the Schlägl Altarpiece (German)
• Culture: Germany
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil and gold on wood
• Dimensions: Framed: 88.9 x 157.5 x 8.3 cm (35 x 62 x 3 1/4 in.); Unframed: 74.3 x 69.8 cm (29 1/4 x 27 1/2 in.); Part 1: 84.9 x 81.4 x 8.3 cm (33 7/16 x 32 1/16 x 3 1/4 in.); Part 2: 84.6 x 152.2 x 8.3 cm (33 5/16 x 59 15/16 x 3 1/4 in.); Part 3: 84.6 x 78.7 x 8.3 cm (33 5/16 x 31 x 3 1/4 in.); Panel: 36.2 x 35 cm (14 1/4 x 13 3/4 in.)
• Collection: MED - Medieval Art
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1951.453

A detail from the museum

In 2012 the museum's conservation department created a new frame that was stylistically more appropriate for this altarpiece.

Collection credit

Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Tietze, Hans "Ein Passionszyklus im Stift Schlägl," Jahrbuch des kunsthistorischen Instituts der Zentralkommission für Denkmalpflege VII (1913).
• Heise, Carl Georg. Norddeutsche malerei: Studien zur ihrer Entwicklungsgeschichte im 15. [i.e. fünfzehnten] Jahrhundert von Köln bis Hamburg. Leipzig: K. Wolff, 1918.
• Hugelschofer, Walter "Der Hochaltar von 1457 des Klosters Marienfeld in Westfalen," Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst n.s. XXXVI (1926-1927).

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.