A man bends over the cross and bores a hole with an auger.
Bible in art · Luke
Christ Nailed to the Cross
Albrecht Dürer · ca. 1509
The Met, New York
In the Small Passion Dürer gives a whole sheet, cut about 1509, to the nailing — a moment the Gospels pass over in a few words: “they crucified Him there.”
The cross lies on the ground. One man bores holes in the wood with an auger, another drives a nail with a hammer, and a basket, a rope and pincers lie in front. Behind, women are gathered on the slope and soldiers stand with pikes.
From the text
- Crucified at the place called The Skull (Luke 23:33)
- The women who had followed him watching (Luke 23:49)
The artist’s own
- The tools of a carpenter of Dürer’s day: auger, hammer, pincers and a wicker basket
- The nailing done with the cross on the ground, as painters of the time imagined it
Details
The auger
The hammer
At the right a man raises a hammer.
Tools
A wicker basket of tools stands on the ground.
The women
Behind, the women are gathered on the slope.
Albrecht Dürer, German, 1471–1528. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Gift of Junius Spencer Morgan, 1919; acc. 19.73.193) · 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".