Minneapolis Institute of Art

The Infant Christ Pressing the Wine of the Eucharist

Possibly Flanders (Brussels)

Date

c. 1500

Medium

Linen warp, wool, silk and gilt weft yarns

Department

European Art

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

This small tapestry depicts the infant Jesus pressing grapes into a chalice. The imagery was widely understood at the time of its creation to reference the physical sacrifice Jesus would later make in his crucifixion. In the Christian ritual of the Eucharist, followers drink holy wine to remember Jesus’s suffering. The remarkably fine quality of the weaving suggests the tapestry was made in a preeminent Brussels workshop. The presence of gold and silk yarns proclaim the tapestry’s value as a high status object, but the intimate scale and subject matter suggest it was used by an elite individual within a devotional practice, most likely within the home. Netherlands, Europe

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