Cleveland Museum of Art

The Passion: Christ in Limbo

Martin SchongauerLinkedCulture matchlcp-a6ab91b43bd5

Date

c. 1480

Medium

engraving

Culture

Germany

Department

Prints

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Object ID

172513

Martin Schongauer's series The Passion of Christ was his largest set of engravings, made around 1480, and extensively copied across Europe. It consists of 12 prints detailing the suffering of Christ in the last days of his life. Schongauer's version focuses on crowded scenes, grotesque physiognomies of Christ's tormentors, and great pathos in the compositions. Here, Schongauer represented the episode in which Christ, between his death and resurrection, descended into Limbo to bring salvation to the righteous ones who had died before him. Christ majestically strides over a vanquished demon crushed under his foot, and holds Adam's hand with his left hand. This image of Christ trampling a monstrous demon and piercing it with his cross recalls the one of Archangel Michael in another print by Martin Schongauer (1952.99).

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