Crowning with thorns

In the Gospels, after Pilate had Jesus flogged, the Roman soldiers threw a purple cloak around him, pressed a crown plaited from thorns onto his head and put a reed in his hand for a sceptre, then knelt in mockery and hailed him as king of the Jews. Domenico Tintoretto painted the scene following a model by his father Jacopo, and the museum singles out what the son kept from him. The composition is built on crossing diagonals and verticals, the bodies twist hard, light and shade are sharply marked, and the highlights are laid on in a way the museum compares to Byzantine painting.