Christ before Caiaphas

Matthew's Gospel says that after the arrest in the garden, Jesus was taken that same night to Caiaphas, the high priest, where the scribes and elders had gathered to question him. This small panel, painted around 1400, shows him being brought in. His wrists are tied with a white cord, and a curly-haired young man in green grips his arm and leans in at his shoulder. Behind them press armed men in pointed helmets, with mail hoods covering neck and chin, the kind of gear soldiers wore when the panel was made. Caiaphas waits on a boxy wooden throne under a canopy, in a tall green hat shaped like a bishop's mitre, and turns his eyes sideways toward the prisoner. Fine curling lines are worked into the gold behind the whole group.