Pietà (c. 1460): Art, History and Details

Pietà (c. 1460) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Early woodcuts usually illustrate religious subjects for the spiritual edification and contemplative meditation of a mostly illiterate public. Produced by anonymous craftsmen, these simple, direct images facilitated an intimate dialogue between the individual and the holy figure depicted. Here, a youthful Virgin Mary delicately embraces her dead son’s body, with its hand-colored flesh and drops of blood. Behind her, the wooden cross displays the Instruments of the Passion of Christ: two nails, the crown of thorns, and two scourges. By stressing the humanity of Mary’s grief over her son’s suffering and death, the print encourages an empathetic response from the beholder. This pietà was probably inspired by sculptures of the subject, common in Germany. Printed on a full sheet of paper, the image was hand colored with watercolor. Remnants of adhesive on the verso and holes caused by insects suggest that it was pasted inside the cover of a book, which preserved it. There are only about 20 northern single-image woodcuts extant. Extraordinary in its large size, fresh color, and good state of preservation, this sheet is the only known impression of the image.

Object facts

• Title: Pietà
• Date: c. 1460
• Culture: Southern Germany, Swabia, 15th century
• Type: Print
• Technique: woodcut, hand colored with watercolor
• Dimensions: Sheet: 38.7 x 28.8 cm (15 1/4 x 11 5/16 in.)
• Collection: PR - Woodcut
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 2002.4

A detail from the museum

In this single-leaf woodcut, Mary’s left hand engages her headscarf in a gesture known as the tuchlein-geste, an act anticipating the wiping away of tears.

Collection credit

Severance and Greta Millikin Trust

Further reading listed by the museum

• Glaubinger, Jane. "Against the Grain." Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 43, no. 7 (September 2003): 8-9.
• "Major Acquisitions 2000-2005." Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 45, no. 6 (July/August 2005): 6-17.
• Cleveland Museum of Art. The CMA Companion: A Guide to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2014.

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.