The Elevation of the Cross from a set of The Passion

Hans Wechtlin

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

With subtlety and dexterity, this tapestry's weavers- who apparently used the monograms AR and ICM- borrowed, enlarged, reversed, and added color to Hans Wechtlin’s design for the woodcut of the Elevation of the Cross in Johannes Schott’s Das Leben Jesu published in 1508. This panel is part of a group of similarly sized scenes from the New Testament, woven across more than two decades, all closely based upon printed prototypes by Albrecht Dürer, Hans Baldung Grien, Hans Schäufelein and Martin Schongauer, as well as by Wechtlin. Together with other surviving tapestry panels now in the Museum Haus Löwenberg in Gengenbach and spread across private collections, these small, captioned Biblical scenes were probably made on speculation for sale to Protestant individuals and religious institutions in the Strasburg area around the turn of the seventeenth century.

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fifty thousand objects in the Museum's comprehensive and historically important collection of European sculpture and decorative arts reflect the development of a number of art forms in Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The holdings include sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also included among these works.

Metropolitan Museum of Art