Provenance

A. G. Gerstäcker (Lugt 1077)
B. Hausmann (Lugt 377)

Full Description

Quite excellent impression of the 4th state, with both of the scrolls at the upper end of  the monogram and the diagonal lines on the wall to the right of the throne and lowest step of the throne. Prior to all subsequent reworkings.
 
Printed on paper with the watermark “coat of arms with two lilies and two fish,” as specifically mentioned by Lehrs for impressions from the 4th state.
 
With fine margins around the framing line. Pristine and impeccable.
 
 
A part of the “Great Passion,” one of this artist’s key works, the present composition also demonstrates van Meckenem’s independent approach to narrating the Passion story. Unlike his great model Schongauer, who concentrates the individual scenes of the Passion almost like devotional images, Meckenem is fond of ‘fabulating,’ and follows multiple narrative strands simultaneously, designing intricate spatial sequences which betray their Netherlandish inspiration in order to incorporate multiple scenes in each image. In this spirit, the palace of the high priest provides a setting for three different episodes: Annas’ interrogation, the Denial of Peter, and finally, in the left-hand background, the Mocking of Christ. Detectable nevertheless is a direct borrowing from Schongauer’s passion sequence, to which A. Rieter has called attention: The figure of the myrmidon, seen from the rear, who leads Christ by the arm, is derived from the executioner's assistant, also situated on the right-hand side, in Martin Schongauer’s “Pilate Washing his Hands” (Lehrs 24).