Crowned with thorns, he holds the reed.
Bible in art · Matthew
The Passion: Christ Crowned with Thorns
Lucas van Leyden · 1521
The Cleveland Museum of Art
The seventh plate of Lucas van Leyden’s Passion of 1521. Long staves cross the picture at sharp angles, and the figures press close round the seated Christ.
Jesus sits in a cloak with the crown of thorns on his head and a reed in his hands. Two soldiers push the crown down with long staves. At the left, a man in a pointed helmet adjusts the reed, and a turbaned man looks over the wall.
From the text
- They twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on His head (Matthew 27:29)
- They put a staff in His right hand (Matthew 27:29)
- They struck Him on the head repeatedly (Matthew 27:30)
The artist’s own
- The crown pressed down with crossed staves — a custom of painters of the time
- A turbaned onlooker over the wall
Details
Jesus
The staves
Soldiers press the crown down.
The reed
A man in a pointed helmet holds it.
Onlooker
A man in a turban looks over the wall.
Lucas van Leyden, Netherlandish, 1494–about 1533. The Cleveland Museum of Art (Dudley P. Allen Fund, 1923.55.7) · Engraving · Cleveland Museum of Art Open Access: Collection API record "share_license_status": "CC0" (Creative Commons Zero, https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/).