Altar Frontal with Man of Sorrows and Saints

Unknown

ca. 1465 · Wool, linen, and metallic thread (gilt membrane on silk) on linen · The Cloisters

This altar frontal depicts Christ as the Man of Sorrows displaying the wounds from his Crucifixion. He wears the Crown of Thorns as well as the cloak in which he was dressed by Roman soldiers prior to his execution. A popular devotional image in the late Middle Ages, the Man of Sorrows incites the viewer's empathy with Christ's suffering. Here, Christ is accompanied by Saint John the Baptist and the Virgin on the left, and by saints John the Evangelist and Jerome on the right. The arms of the Nuremberg citizen Martin Pessler (died 1463) and his wife, Margarete Toppler (died 1469), appear at the bottom. This tapestry may well be one of the seven altar frontals Margarete is known to have given to the Lorenzkirche in Nuremberg, a parish church that was richly endowed by the city's merchant class in the late Middle Ages.

Artist

Unknown

Date

ca. 1465

Medium

Wool, linen, and metallic thread (gilt membrane on silk) on linen

Culture

German

Department

The Cloisters

Credit line

The Cloisters Collection, 1991