Christ with the Crown of Thorns

Around 1500, small pictures of the suffering Christ were in steady demand. They were made for private prayer, on the belief that dwelling on the pain of the Passion could lead a soul toward salvation, and in Leuven the workshop of Dieric Bouts turned out many of them from traced pattern drawings.

This panel, barely 37 centimetres high, answers the same need. The Belvedere dates it around 1490 to 1500 and lists it as attributed to Rueland Frueauf the Elder, stopping short of certainty. The head fills almost the whole surface against a gold ground, with fine strokes fanning out behind it like rays. Clear tears run down the cheeks beside the drops of blood from the thorns. Since 2023 it has been on long-term loan from a private collection in Vienna, shown in the Palace Stables of the Lower Belvedere.