Head of Christ Crowned with Thorns
c. 1535
Medium
Woodcut in black on cream laid paper
Dimensions
Block: 42.7 × 32.2 cm (16 13/16 × 12 11/16 in.); Sheet: 49.3 × 32.2 cm (19 7/16 × 12 11/16 in.)
Classification
woodcut
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
23354
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Domestic decoration made religious imagery ubiquitous and prints even functioned as private shrines. For those requiring a wall-mounted image to focus their devotions, Sebald Beham’s magnificent, over-life-size Head of Christ woodcut after Dürer’s 1513 Sudarium engraving presents a dramatic close-up view of the imprint of the Holy Face. Its grand scale may be inspired by a fifteenth-century continuously repeating Sudarium wallpaper. Off-printing of the same image on the verso of this impression—...
About the Artist
Hans Sebald Beham · 1500–1550
Sebald Beham (1500-1550), often called Hans Sebald Beham, was a German painter and printmaker born in Nuremberg. He stands as the most important figure among the Kleinmeister (Little Masters), a group of German artists who created remarkably detailed prints on a diminutive scale in the generation following Albrecht Dürer. Beham's significance lies in his technical virtuosity and unprecedented pro...