Christ carries the bodily remains of the dead up a ladder to his position on the cross. Etching by A. Hirschvogel, 1547.

  • Hirschvogel, Augustin, 1503-1553.
Date:
1547
Reference:
2020587i
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Description

Christ carries the devil, cadavers and a skeleton representing sin and death as he steps on a ladder leading up to the cross. In the background, a river in a landscape. According to Falkenau, Hirschvogel's depiction is unique in German art. North Italian painters of the 13th and 14th centuries had depicted Christ being helped up a ladder on to the cross (A. Eörsi, op. cit.), but Hirschvogel emphasizes that Christ steps up willingly to sacrifice himself for mankind. Falkenau finds a similar emphasis in Luther's Postillae on Saint John the Apostle's day, 1527. Perényi was a Protestant. The Biblical texts referred to are Luke ch. 23 and II Corinthians 5, 14ff.

Publication/Creation

[Vienna] : [publisher not identified], 1547.

Physical description

1 print : etching ; image and border 13 x 13.1 cm

Contributors

Lettering

1547 Published with four German verses: Noch mer Christus am creutz uberwand / desshalben von Gott war selb gesandt / Und den teueffel Hell alles band / Drumb er unser erlöser ist genannt. Luc. 23e. Corinth.5f

Creator/production credits

Peter Perényi (1502-1548) selected the episodes in the series, and the artist Hirschvogel was maintained by him to create the etched plates. He was a Hungarian landowner and politician involved in conflicts of the time between the Turks and the two rivals for the throne of Hungary, King John I Zápolya and King Ferdinand I, Archduke of Austria. According to the funeral address by Fabricius Szikszai on the death of Peter Perényi's son Gabriel in 1567, Peter Perényi, while imprisoned in Vienna by Ferdinand I, "historias Veteris et Novi Testamenti insigniores colligebat, appositissimeque inter se comparatas, pictoris quem ad hunc usum alabat manu scitissime curabat efformari ... quae quidem picturae venustate italicae subtilitatis non carentes, nunc quoque extant" (Falkenau, op. cit., p. 18)

References note

Karsten Falkenau, Die "Concordantz Alt und News Testament" von 1550: ein Hauptwerk biblischer Typologie des 16. Jahrhunderts illustriert von Augustin Hirschvogel, Regensburg: Schnell u. Steiner, 1999, pl. 59b ("Kreuzbesteigung Christi mit Sünde und Tod") and pp. 87-88
A. Eörsi, 'Haec scala significal ascensum virtutum. Remarks on the iconography of Christ mounting the cross on a ladder', Arte Christiana 780 (84, 1997), pp. 151-166 (comparative paintings)
William Schupbach, 'Easter 1547: a warlord repents', Wellcome Library blog, 18 April 2016 https://wayback.archive-it.org/16107/20210312210558/http://blog.wellcomelibrary.org/2016/03/easter-1547-a-warlord-repents/

Reference

Wellcome Collection 2020587i

Notes

One plate in series: concordance of Old and New Testament episodes by Péter Perényi (1502-1548)

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