Twisted branches with thorns, and drops of blood on the forehead.
Bible in art · John
Christ Presented to the People (Ecce Homo)
Sodoma · ca. 1540–49
The Met, New York
Sodoma — the nickname of Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, born in Piedmont — spent most of his life in Siena, where he painted this late work in the 1540s. It is a close-up: no palace, no crowd, only heads and shoulders filling a nearly square canvas.
Jesus, crowned with thorns and bare to the waist, lowers his eyes. A bearded man in a turban lays a hand on his shoulder as if showing him to the people; on the other side a man in a feathered red cap leans in, grinning.
From the text
- Pilate had Him flogged (John 19:1)
- The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns (John 19:2)
- “Here is the man!” (John 19:5)
The artist’s own
- No purple robe — Jesus is shown bare to the waist
- A man in a turban and fur-lined coat, dress painters of the time gave to figures of the East
- A mocker in a feathered cap of sixteenth-century Italy
Details
Crown of thorns
Jesus
His eyes lowered, his mouth slightly open.
The man in the turban
Bearded, in a striped turban and fur-lined coat; his hand rests on Jesus’ shoulder.
The mocker
A man in a red cap with feathers leans in, grinning.
Bound
A rope tied round the wrist.
Sodoma (Giovanni Antonio Bazzi), Italian, Vercelli 1477–1549 Siena. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Gift of Asbjorn R. Lunde, in memory of his parents, Karl and Elisa Lunde, 1996; acc. 1996.261) · Oil on canvas · 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".