Plate Depicting Christ’s Passion (c. 1510): Art, History and Details

Plate Depicting Christ’s Passion (c. 1510) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Painter of the Royal Procession (Italian).

The work and its context

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

The painted scenes on this plate depicting the Passion of Christ include the betrayal of Jesus by his disciple Judas (right); the arrest and condemnation by the Jews (left); the bearing of the cross (top); the Crucifixion (middle); and the resurrection (bottom). At least one of the scenes (the condemnation or the Scourging at the Pillar) is based on a Florentine woodcut from the devotional writings of Girolamo Savonarola (1452–1498).

Object facts

• Title: Plate Depicting Christ’s Passion
• Date: c. 1510
• Creator attribution: Painter of the Royal Procession (Italian)
• Culture: Italy, Florentine region, Cafaggiolo
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: tin-glazed earthenware (maiolica)
• Dimensions: Diameter: 29.2 cm (11 1/2 in.)
• Collection: Decorative Arts
• Department: Decorative Art and Design
• Accession number: 1943.55

A detail from the museum

During the Renaissance, scenes from the Christian Bible were prominently featured on maiolica, covering the surface in a style called istoriato (decorated with stories).

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Balniel, Lord, Kenneth Clark, and Ettore Modigliana. Exhibition of Italian Art. A Commemorative Catalogue of the Exhibition of Italian Art Held in the Galleries of the Royal Academy, Burlington House. London: Oxford University Press, 1931.
• Longhurst, M. H., A. F. Kendrick, Bernard Rackham, and Wilfred Buckley. "The Italian Exhibition." The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 56, no. 322 (June 1930): 9-31.
• Milliken, William M. "Italian Majolica." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 31, no. 1 (January 1944): 7-15.

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.