Master of the Bruges Passion Scenes, Christ presented to the People

Several episodes of the story of the Passion of Christ are packed into this busy painting. The narrative begins in the background on the left, where Christ is scourged. In the next scene he has been crowned with thorns and dressed in a purple (now blue) robe; he holds a reed in his right hand and is mocked by the soldiers.

In the foreground, the Roman governor Pontius Pilate leads Christ out and says ‘Ecce Homo’ (‘Behold the man’). On seeing him, the chief priests and officers called for Christ’s crucifixion; Pilate replied, ‘Take ye him and crucify him: for I find no fault in him’ (John 19:6). The foremost figures are presumably the chief priests, with the ‘officers’ behind them.

We don‘t know the identity of the artist but he is named after an altarpiece showing scenes of Christ’s Passion in the cathedral of Saint Salvator in Bruges. He was an eclectic painter and borrowed extensively from other artists. His principal source was an engraving of the ’Ecce Homo‘ by Martin Schongauer, from which come the foreground figures of Christ and Pilate. He also took figures from a number of other Schongauer prints, as well as details from Albrecht Dürer’s work. The small scenes of the Flagellation and the mocking of Christ are taken, probably indirectly, from Hans Memling. The ’antique' frieze on the praetorium – the building we see behind Christ – must be based, directly or indirectly, on an Italian model.

Infrared reflectograms reveal extensive underdrawing for Christ, Pilate and the two men in turbans, but other figures are less detailed. The underdrawing tends to follow the artist’s sources more faithfully than the final painted version, and the artist made various adjustments while painting: the man to Christ’s right is drawn with longer hair and a moustache, while the man second from the bottom originally wore a helmet. Some of the architecture was underdrawn then incised, not always in exactly the same place, and a divider was used to make the two roundels – the discs containing heads – we see above the arcade. The scenes of the Flagellation and the mocking of Christ were not strictly underdrawn but were outlined in azurite, a blue pigment.

The artist shows considerable skill in manipulating the slow-drying oil paint, working wet into wet paint in many areas and using sgraffito (scratching through the surface to reveal a layer of a contrasting colour beneath) to produce the wiry effect in the men’s beards, stubble and eyebrows.

The panel was once the left wing of an altarpiece. Its format is unusually tall and was once taller still, but both top and bottom edges have been trimmed. Some of the colours have changed: Christ’s robe was possibly brighter purple and in the mocking scene it has changed from purple to blue, as the red lake pigment has faded. The back was possibly once painted in grisaille. There are traces of chalk ground and grey paint on the reverse, but whatever image was there was lost when the panel was thinned.