Christ on the Mount of Olives

Christ kneels alone before a grey rock, hands pressed together, while an angel leans out of the reddish sky holding a cross. On the rock beside it stands a chalice, the cup he prays to be spared. Below him three apostles sleep. John, young and curly-haired, lies stretched out in white. James rests his head on his hand. Peter has slumped against the slope, his sword on the grass by his feet, the one he will draw at the arrest. Behind them, beyond a woven wattle fence, helmeted soldiers crowd among the trees, a man in red climbs over with a spear, and Judas, in yellow, is already on the near side. The panel once belonged to Count Wilczek, who rebuilt the ruined castle of Kreuzenstein north of Vienna and filled it with medieval objects, and it came to the Kunsthistorisches Museum in 1932.