Christ on the Mount of Olives

This panel is only four millimetres thick. It was the outer face of an altar wing whose board was later sawn through, and the inner face, with the young Saint Vitus turning away from the girls sent to tempt him, is also in the Belvedere. A winged altar usually stood closed on ordinary days, so this was the side a congregation saw most of the year. The scene is the night of Christ's arrest. He kneels in the garden, his long robe spread over the grass, facing a tall outcrop of rock, while a small angel holding a scroll flies in above the rocks. Below, three disciples have fallen asleep in a heap. Beyond a fence of pointed planks, a path climbs toward a town of Gothic spires, and helmets and lances are already showing over the crest of the hill.