A Lamentation relief
Central Germany around 1520
Material: carved limewood from four blocks, the reverse smoothed down. With extensive remains of partially overpainted older polychromy. stabilised with a wooden panel on the reverse.
Measurement: 66 x 70 x 9 cm
This pierced relief depicts the mourning Virgin supporting the body of Her dead Son across Her right knee and holding Him with both hands.
The relief formed part of a scene of the Lamentation of Christ beneath the cross, which we can tell because of the rectangular indentation in the back of the
Virgin where the vertical beam of the cross would originally have stood, and because the jar of ointment is depicted on the stone on the right.
The composition of the finely carved and expressive relief is designed to present the body of Christ and His wounds to receive the compassionate prayer of the beholder.
Provenance:
German private collection