Crucifixion Altarpiece, Left Wing, Inner Face: The Good Thief and St Lazarus

Of the four Gospels, only Luke lets the two men crucified with Christ speak. One of them jeers at him. The other tells him to be quiet, because the two of them are being punished justly and this man has done nothing wrong, and then he asks Jesus to remember him when he comes into his kingdom. The answer is a promise, today you will be with me in paradise. This is that man, the penitent thief, on the inner face of the left wing. Beneath his cross Burgkmair set Saint Lazarus, the man Christ called out of his tomb after four days. Both men on this wing were promised life beyond death, and the altarpiece was most probably made for a chapel standing in a cemetery, the one beside St Stephan in Augsburg, finished a couple of years before Burgkmair dated these panels 1519.