The Passion: The Burial of Christ

Lucas van Leyden · 1521
The Cleveland Museum of Art

The twelfth plate of Lucas van Leyden’s Passion of 1521. A man seen from behind fills the right half, as if we stood among the mourners.

Two men lower the body of Jesus into a stone tomb. Mary, veiled, looks down. John stands behind her, and a woman with long hair weeps into a cloth at the right.

From the text

They wrapped the body in linen cloths with the spices (John 19:40)

A new tomb in a garden, where no one had yet been laid (John 19:41)

Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where His body was placed (Mark 15:47)

The artist’s own

A stone tomb like those of a church, not a tomb cut in rock

Trees for the garden

Details

The body

Jesus is lowered into the tomb.

Mary

Veiled, she looks down.

John

He stands behind.

Weeping

A woman with long hair holds a cloth.

Lucas van Leyden, Netherlandish, 1494–about 1533. The Cleveland Museum of Art (Dudley P. Allen Fund, 1923.55.12) · Engraving · Cleveland Museum of Art Open Access: Collection API record "share_license_status": "CC0" (Creative Commons Zero, https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/).

The verses

John 19:40–42So they took the body of Jesus and wrapped it in linen cloths with the spices, according to the Jewish burial custom. Now there was a garden in the place where Jesus was crucified, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. And because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and the tomb was nearby, they placed Jesus there.

Mark 15:46–47So Joseph bought a linen cloth, took down the body of Jesus, wrapped it in the cloth, and placed it in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance to the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where His body was placed.