Diptych with the Passion of Christ (c. 1400): Art, History and Details

Diptych with the Passion of Christ (c. 1400) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This diptych, or two-panel painting, is hinged at the center so that it could be opened and closed and easily transported. It was clearly designed as an object for private devotion. The owner would have been able to contemplate the Passion of Christ and pray before these scenes. The top two images depict Christ’s scourging at the pillar and the crowning of thorns, while the lower two show Jesus before Pontius Pilate and in the Garden of Gethsemane. The scenes would have been read clockwise beginning with the lower right. On the back of these panels are remnants of paintings that have since been scraped off.

Object facts

• Title: Diptych with the Passion of Christ
• Date: c. 1400
• Culture: Austria, Styria, 15th century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: tempera and gold on wood oak
• Dimensions: Unframed: 45.7 x 27 cm (18 x 10 5/8 in.); Including original molding: 52.4 x 34.3 cm (20 5/8 x 13 1/2 in.)
• Collection: MED - Medieval Art
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1945.115

A detail from the museum

This painting was probably not originally a diptych but part of a larger ensemble.

Collection credit

Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Francis, Henry S. “A Diptych with Four Scenes from the Passion: Close to the Hand of Master Francke.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 33, no. 1 (1946).
• Francis, Henry S. "Early German Painting in the Cleveland Museum of Art," American-German Reivew XXI/2 (1954-1955).
• Stange, Alfred. Deutsche Malerei der Gotik. Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 1961.

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.