The Crucifixion

Housebook Master

1481–82 · Tempera on parchment · Robert Lehman Collection

The mysterious artist known as the Housebook Master is named after the famous "Hausbuch" manuscript, a book of drawings and illuminations on the subject of war, probably produced between 1475 and 1485. He is thought to have worked as a printmaker, painter, and manuscript illuminator in Germany, particularly the Middle Rhine region, in the second half of the fifteenth century. This leaf depicting the Crucifixion was probably detached from a missal (Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin), a book of texts used in reciting the mass. Although its style resembles that of the Housebook Master, the leaf was probably by an artist in his circle.

Artist

Housebook Master

Date

1481–82

Medium

Tempera on parchment

Culture

German, possibly Mainz and/or Cologne

Department

Robert Lehman Collection

Credit line

Robert Lehman Collection, 1975