He bends under the cross.
Bible in art · John
Leaf Excised from the Tarleton Hours: Christ Carrying the Cross
Unknown painter, Normandy · c. 1430
The Cleveland Museum of Art
A leaf from the Tarleton Hours, a book of hours made in Normandy, perhaps Rouen, about 1430. The painter used silver as well as gold, and silver darkens with age — the grey of the armour may once have shone.
Jesus, in a grey robe, bends under a huge cross among soldiers with weapons. Two more crosses already stand on the rocky hill above, and a sun shines at the top of the arch.
From the text
- Carrying His own cross, He went out to the Place of the Skull (John 19:17)
- Simon of Cyrene made to carry it behind (Luke 23:26)
The artist’s own
- The two crosses waiting on the hill
- Weapons and armour of the 1430s
Details
Jesus
Cross
A cross already stands on the hill.
Soldiers
Men in armour crowd around.
The sun
A sun with rays at the top of the arch.
Unknown illuminator, Northern France, Normandy, Rouen?, 15th century. The Cleveland Museum of Art (The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection, 2001.77) · ink, tempera, silver, and gold on vellum · Cleveland Museum of Art Open Access: Collection API record "share_license_status": "CC0" (Creative Commons Zero, https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/).