A man on the ladder carries the body over his shoulder.
Bible in art · John
The Descent from the Cross
Albrecht Dürer · ca. 1509
The Met, New York
This Small Passion woodcut of about 1509 shows the body being taken down from the cross, which the Gospels tell in a single sentence.
A man on a ladder carries the body over his shoulder, its long hair hanging down, while another works behind the cross. A young man looks up as he steadies the ladder, an old man in a tall hat wipes his eyes, and women stand at the left.
From the text
- Joseph of Arimathea taking down the body (John 19:38; Mark 15:46)
- The notice still on the cross (John 19:19)
The artist’s own
- The crown of thorns hung on the arm of the cross
- A hammer left on the ground — how the nails were drawn out, as painters imagined it
Details
Carried down
The crown
The crown of thorns hangs on the arm of the cross.
Tears
An old man in a tall hat wipes his eyes with his cloak.
The hammer
A hammer lies on the ground by the ladder.
Albrecht Dürer, German, 1471–1528. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Gift of Junius Spencer Morgan, 1919; acc. 19.73.196) · Woodcut · 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".