Christ Carried to Heaven by Angels

Cleveland Museum of Art

Christ Carried to Heaven by Angels

Hans BaldungLinkedCulture matchlcp-a65968000741

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

Baldung, who lived in Strasbourg, was Albrecht Dürer's most talented pupil. A highly original artist, he produced about 550 woodcuts. The origin of his nickname, Grien, to which the G in his monogram refers, is unclear. It may allude to his predilection for the color green, or it may derive from Grienhans, meaning devil (demonic fantasies appear in some of the artist's works). Baldung often avoided conventional compositions in favor of an innovative depiction of greater pathos and drama. Although a living Christ had long been shown ascending to heaven, Baldung's representation—in which Christ's corpse is carried heavenward by angels—is unprecedented. In contrast to the celestial splendor at the top of this composition, where God the Father and the dove of the Holy Spirit are illuminated by a burst of radiant light, Christ is shown in a harshly awkward position, accentuating his torment and suffering. The angels labor to carry the heavy body, which appears to be sinking downward, reminiscent of scenes of the entombment, in which Christ is lowered into a grave. This devotional image gives visual form to one of the central mysteries of the Christian faith, the contradiction between Christ's human suffering and his divine nature, symbolized by the grandeur of heaven.

LinkedCulture assembled this text from several fields of Cleveland Museum of Art’s catalogue record, so it is not the museum’s own wording as published. See “How LinkedCulture maps this record” below.

Cleveland Museum of Art’s catalogue record

Medium
woodcut
Credit Line
Dudley P. Allen Fund
Type of artwork
Print
Department
Prints

Also in Cleveland Museum of Art’s record. The museum’s own label for these fields has not been confirmed yet, so each is named by its field in the museum’s data.

creation_date
c. 1515–17

Taken from LinkedCulture’s stored copy of Cleveland Museum of Art’s record. A fresh capture of the museum’s own record has not been made for this object yet.

From LinkedCulture

Hans Baldung made a choice no artist before him had made: instead of showing a triumphant Christ rising on his own, he depicted a corpse being physically hauled into heaven. Angels strain and labor under the dead weight of the body, which hangs in a harshly awkward position, pulling downward even as the composition reaches upward toward God the Father, surrounded by a blazing burst of radiant light. This German woodcut, made around 1515 to 1517, makes visible a contradiction that most artists had avoided confronting so directly.

Written by LinkedCulture for its video on this object. Machine-generated (claude-sonnet-4-6), not yet reviewed by a person. It is not part of the museum’s record.

What the image shows

A religious scene depicting angels and a figure ascending towards a radiant light.

Generated by LinkedCulture from the photograph alone, without the museum’s catalogue text (Qwen/Qwen2.5-VL-7B-Instruct), and not yet reviewed by a person. It describes the picture, not the object’s history, and it is not part of the museum’s record.

View at Cleveland Museum of Art ↗

The authoritative record is held by Cleveland Museum of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata. The fields above are the museum’s, under its own labels. LinkedCulture’s derived fields are listed separately below and marked as ours.

Get printable QR codes

Open QR codes for this object page and the museum record. They stay collapsed until needed.

Open this page QR destination: https://linkedculture.org/q/q1.5c0aJkVtJciouYZU.lbYpE0kKhmBwVkUP7gtsYpJCAFp2Ji9YIg-pydEWwCXLRhT_PGoKRc-wuu9WKWfUUi6VLc5ASchFeZHqo9ejKDivxQllhBnYe_iyCzayNZhNdJVpftlbmYzM9Cwz8xAY9NSBX9F5unpjV3NbSIT1UHQnDqkfl19C_KeC1o_WWbv_ritiveQ35kPO-XxCUPS22thjKHr2lbBE_nMsnLVUIxQCk4EQqslmeBZR-qmJ9R2i820i5RuSVFPHfE97gVdLweLmcjhpKXbbStfarufkP1c6pHEEydW6SakP6epiRoVglgcJRwSee at Cleveland Museum of Art QR destination: https://linkedculture.org/q/q1.12vAkWUOAhVvAggo.Go5VE8_oRddebK5oLkmiccKvfjbbuYEmYdnscxLT95SFzhBxOYCjqQ7vv8P3JUE-rmRHPXEStaBwkoV3nDBauUBSsNpYOvX0jmgZWCSx0PB3Q8NFLc0_pPLsyl6nnk0e9MPMLcEqpQuhjqT-QouaOkQ8Zo3hVj0bvvMAJGF-b4puFUE9Mdc7yiWJnGNgbv2836XbiK4hXNWJZn5h9OdaUQMalh_IqpM14fdQzV6URp69wi5LqjRef0R7WlOt-HAmZlmtegcNO7e2SubaFUhP_r63DfjPKqPBW1olzXd7
Open this page
See at Cleveland Museum of Art
How LinkedCulture maps this record

To search objects from different museums together, LinkedCulture reads each museum’s record into a common set of fields. The values below are LinkedCulture’s, under LinkedCulture’s names. They are not Cleveland Museum of Art’s wording; the museum’s own record is shown above under its own labels.

Object ID
150178
Object Type
Print
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field “Type of artwork” · copied as is
Creator
Hans Baldung
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field creators (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · derived by LinkedCulture from the museum field · Artist-role creator's description with life dates removed.
Culture
Germany
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field “Culture” · copied as is
Medium
woodcut
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field “Medium” · copied as is · Cleveland's 'technique' field holds materials.
Department
Prints
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field “Department” · copied as is
Tags
  • male
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field tags (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · combined from several museum fields
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field artists_tags (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · combined from several museum fields
Credit Line
Dudley P. Allen Fund
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field “Credit Line” · copied as is
Date
c. 1515–17
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field creation_date (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · copied as is
Begin Year
1515
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field creation_date_earliest (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · copied as is
End Year
1517
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field creation_date_latest (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · copied as is

The museum’s own record has not been captured for this object yet, so the museum fields shown above are limited to values LinkedCulture stored unchanged.

LinkedCulture video

Christ Carried to Heaven by Angels

Nov 8, 2026 · Short

YouTubeInstagram
Follow LinkedCultureYouTubeInstagramBluesky
Museum record

Related across collections

Semantically similar works from Cleveland Museum of Art and other institutions.