The Passion: The Agony in the Gardenc. 1480
Martin Schongauer's series of the Passion of Christ was his largest set of engravings, made around 1480, and extensively copied across Europe. More about this work
About this work
Martin Schongauer's series of the Passion of Christ was his largest set of engravings, made around 1480, and extensively copied across Europe. It consists of twelve prints detailing the suffering of Christ in the last days of his life. Schongauer's version focuses on crowded scenes, grotesque physiognomies of Christ's tormentors, and great pathos in the compositions. Here, Jesus kneels in prayer in the Garden of Olives and looks up at a hovering angels. The apostles Peter, James, and John are sleeping in the foreground. In the background, Judas holds the bag of money received in exchange for his betrayal as he leads Roman soldiers towards Christ.
Text from the Cleveland Museum of Art.
How it was made
- Engraving
- Lines cut directly into a metal plate with a steel burin, which makes them swell and taper. It took years to master, and for centuries it was how paintings travelled as pictures.
Martin Schongauer
German, c. 1450–1491 · Born in Colmar; died in Breisach.
Schongauer, the son of a goldsmith, worked in Colmar in Alsace and was both a painter and the most accomplished engraver of fifteenth-century northern Europe. His engravings, more than a hundred, brought a new range of tone and texture to the medium and circulated widely; the young Michelangelo copied his Temptation of Saint Anthony, and Dürer travelled to Colmar hoping to meet him, arriving after his death. His Passion series shows his clear, expressive storytelling.
Written by Ochre Editions.
Renaissance
European art from about 1400 to 1600, when painters rediscovered perspective and the classical past.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Cleveland Museum of Art has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 1922.91
- Credit
- Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art
- Type
- Department
- Prints
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
