Two men force the crown down with sticks.
Bible in art · Matthew
Christ Crowned with Thorns
Albrecht Dürer · 1512
The Met, New York
Dürer engraved the Crowning with Thorns in 1512, the year he made most of the plates of his Engraved Passion. The plate is tiny, but every face has its own expression.
Jesus sits on a step, wrapped in a cloak, holding a thin staff. One man presses the crown down with a pole, another forces it with a forked stick, and in front a young man kneels in mock homage.
From the text
- A crown of thorns set on his head (Matthew 27:29)
- A staff in his hand and men kneeling to mock him (Matthew 27:29)
The artist’s own
- The crown pressed down with long sticks, a custom of painters of the time
- Onlookers in turbans at the edge
- The date 1512 on a tablet above
Details
Pressed down
The staff
Jesus holds a slender staff.
Mock homage
A young man kneels in front of him.
1512
The year on a tablet; the monogram on another at the lower left.
Albrecht Dürer, German, 1471–1528. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Fletcher Fund, 1919; acc. 19.73.9) · Engraving · Public Domain — The Met Open Access (CC0). The Met Collection API record: "isPublicDomain": true; The Met marks such works on its website "with the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) icon".