Pilate Washing His Hands

Minneapolis Institute of Art

Pilate Washing His Hands

Albrecht DürerLinkedCulture matchlcp-840f7214ff34

From the Minneapolis Institute of Art record

Pilate, the Roman prefect of Judea, washes his hands as armed henchmen lead the bound Christ away. Pilate is attempting to remove the moral stain on his conscience left by his having knowingly allowed the rabble to free the criminal Barabbas while sending Christ to his death. In an act that reinforces the finality of the unjust decision, one of the guards looks back over his shoulder to confirm that Pilate has indeed washed his hands of the affair. This is a proof printed prior to the regular edition of Albrecht Dürer’s Small Passion, a book in which he visually narrated key stories of the life of Christ. Germany, Europe

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

Minneapolis Institute of Art’s catalogue record

Dated
c. 1509
Artist
Albrecht Dürer
Department
European Art
Credit
Gift of funds from the Ronald F. Kinney Foundation
Medium
Woodcut

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

From LinkedCulture

Pilate is mid-gesture here, hands outstretched over a servant's bowl as another attendant pours water, and across the scene a soldier twists back to confirm the deed is done. This woodcut by Albrecht Dürer, made around 1509 in Germany, is a rare proof pulled before the block was bound into his Small Passion series. The dense hatching and precisely carved Corinthian column reveal the control of a master craftsman working at his peak. It matters because this single impression captures both a defining moment of moral failure and Dürer's extraordinary printmaking process in one sheet.

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 group of men in medieval attire is gathered around a table, one man is serving food.

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.

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Open this page QR destination: https://linkedculture.org/q/q1.uwb5StOuAcfOKAZH.QA_SJu7bjoBdNgw_uOwebP7Jb_8jE3wMoEmLzJ7p_pYtX3FNenxcJpSio-qOzPT-Dw7-CfbEsPZBWmTgbRJoSNr9in9DCfnsp18UeBsFiiZ5VvTuCFOYVKvY1FVI9CwhA4JCqaxBKzAt9VfV_FPpKtGgSKV5zmGES27nLbF7iy9wTo2OkUo5M8bOwcKIAiNPfsVA7vUaB11pAW2pj4ukt0NhzYRsShZXgf_MrqouVkJQ7rCKGxwVdAU0cu7_JImJmi-i4pxRFTU0K43AYgSee at Minneapolis Institute of Art QR destination: https://linkedculture.org/q/q1.QhWkIKeRhzPp6Gpb.a0QaYmyVzE0gkdlkVykGZ3Y6NeQ1nyFWoJTjoypMoi_sC8bSRng7Rmn7UAgl2RwPnCo0878Me6QPvGH5xCCEZ5J9OkcPNTibQJcbvU1jZzKb39sU78E2wWIZx-893KxQUE5_83HcrgwqT3aM39TXK55oKQw8FETkaJExPaIfrqRoXq2pyvWmz-c-vDYCZZktye1aeTSBSHmR4GTCOMvgCV_QjQzxRNDxTegAINl-97Fosn1m5_XU10qjv9qLnMJm3ZmJUcce8esBTdaVbZGqQvcb
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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 Minneapolis Institute of Art’s wording; the museum’s own record is shown above under its own labels.

Object ID
123439
Object Type
Prints
  • Minneapolis Institute of Art field “Classification” · the first available of several museum fields
  • Minneapolis Institute of Art field “Object Name” · the first available of several museum fields
Creator
Albrecht Dürer
  • Minneapolis Institute of Art field “Artist” · copied as is
Medium
Woodcut
  • Minneapolis Institute of Art field “Medium” · copied as is
Department
European Art
  • Minneapolis Institute of Art field “Department” · copied as is
Credit Line
Gift of funds from the Ronald F. Kinney Foundation
  • Minneapolis Institute of Art field “Credit” · copied as is
Date
c. 1509
  • Minneapolis Institute of Art field “Dated” · copied as is
Begin Year
1509
  • Minneapolis Institute of Art field “Dated” · derived by LinkedCulture from the museum field
End Year
1509
  • Minneapolis Institute of Art field “Dated” · derived by LinkedCulture from the museum field

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

Pilate Washing His Hands

Nov 13, 2026 · Short

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Museum record

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