Lamentation of Christ by the Virgin Mary and John

In the late Middle Ages a number of pictorial types developed from the series of paintings depicting the Passion of Christ. They served as “devotional images” for personal piety. Here, on the other hand, the individual phases of the Passion – the crowning with thorns, the crucifixion, lamentation and entombment – are made comprehensible in a single painting. For the purposes of the Counter-Reformation, the realistically depicted details have an immediate appeal to the faithful viewer and awaken sympathy.