Christ and Saint John the Evangelist (1300–1320): Art, History and Details

Christ and Saint John the Evangelist (1300–1320) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This sculptural group featuring Saint John the Evangelist resting on the shoulder of Christ was a prolific subject in Swabia, the region on the Swiss border. The subject appears to be unique to this region, where it became popular in the years following 1300. Many of these devotional sculptures adorned the chapels of Dominican convents; this is artistically among the finest to survive. It captures the pathos of the moment, based on the Gospel of John (13:23), which states that during the Last Supper one of Christ’s disciples, namely "whom Jesus loved," was resting on his shoulder. As a focus for devotion and contemplation, this sculpture reflects the fundamental religious beliefs rooted in the mysticism that dominated the period. Mysticism was a movement that intended to stimulate the contemplation of Christ’s Passion and suffering. Mysticism encouraged private devotion and religious images, called andachtsbilder (devotional images), appeared in large numbers in late medieval Germany.

Object facts

• Title: Christ and Saint John the Evangelist
• Date: 1300–1320
• Culture: Germany, Swabia, near Bodensee (Lake Constance)
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: polychromed and gilded oak
• Dimensions: Overall: 92.7 x 64.5 x 28.8 cm (36 1/2 x 25 3/8 x 11 5/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Gothic
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1928.753

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Oppenheim, Benoit. Original Bildwerke in Holz, Stein, Elfenbein u.s.w. der sammlung Benoit Oppenheim: nachtrag. Leipzig: Karl W. Hiersemann, 1911.
• W. M. M. "A German Wood Carving." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 16, no. 2 (1929)
• Herausgegeben von Robert Schmidt, Pantheon XXXII (Munchen, 1944)

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.