Christ before Pilate (1500/05): Artwork and History

Christ before Pilate (1500/05) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Giovanni Antonio da Brescia Italian, c. 1460-1520.

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

Giovanni Antonio da Brescia’s unusually large engraving Christ before Pilate recalls relief sculptures from the sides of Roman sarcophagi. The darkly crosshatched background creates a shallow depth of field and unifies the figural frieze. Pilate’s elevated placement and pointing finger emphasize his authoritative demeanor. The biblical text beneath his seat proclaims his unrealized intention to set Christ free; indeed, his captive’s foot seems to emerge from the picture plane. Da Brescia placed the line of sight below the horizon, creating the illusion of looking up for the viewer and thus increasing the image’s sense of monumentality.

Object facts

• Title: Christ before Pilate
• Date: 1500/05
• Artist attribution: Giovanni Antonio da Brescia Italian, c. 1460-1520
• Place of origin: Italy
• Medium: Engraving on paper
• Dimensions: 29.1 × 31.4 cm (11 1/2 × 12 3/8 in.)
• Type: Print
• Department: Prints and Drawings
• Reference number: 1956.984

Collection credit

Bequest of Mrs. Potter Palmer, Jr.

View the original

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The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.