Christ, from Christ, the Twelve Apostles and St. Paul
1525–76
Medium
Engraving; third state
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1949
Accession Number
49.95.86
Art Historical Context
Lambert Suavius’s engraving of Christ forms part of a larger series depicting Christ, the Twelve Apostles, and St. Paul. Created between 1525 and 1576, the print reflects the period’s strong demand for portable devotional images. As an engraving in its third state, it showcases the medium’s capacity for crisp lines and subtle tonal gradations, allowing the composition to circulate widely among collectors and worshippers alike. Suavius, active in the Low Countries during the Northern Renaissance, worked at a moment when printmaking bridged local traditions with Italianate figure styles. The ch...
About the Artist
Lambert Suavius · 1510–1576
Lambert Suavius (c.1510–c.1574/76), whose Flemish family name was Zutman, was born in Liège, in the southern Netherlands. He was the son of an episcopal goldsmith, Henri Zutman, and from his father's craft environment he inherited a training in the precise handling of metal and an appreciation for fine detail work. He became closely associated with his brother-in-law Lambert Lombard, the leading a...