Crucifixion Altarpiece, Right Wing, Inner Face: The Bad Thief and St Martha

The Gospels never name the two thieves crucified with Christ. An early Christian text outside the Bible, the Gospel of Nicodemus, called them Dismas and Gestas, and those names stayed in use through the Middle Ages. Dismas was the one who repented. Gestas, who mocked Christ to the end, hangs here on the inner face of the right wing. Burgkmair turned his cross away from Christ, and the museum reads that as the sign of his obduracy, a man who would not repent even in his last hour. Beneath him stands Saint Martha. Her brother Lazarus stands under the other thief, on the opposite wing. Luke's Gospel remembers her as the sister who rushed about serving when Jesus came to their house, and complained about it, while her sister Mary sat listening at his feet.