Flagellation of Christ

Down on the chequered floor, beside the kneeling man's bundle of rods, Frueauf painted his initials, RF, and a little further along the year 1491. The Belvedere dates several of the other panels from this altar only to 1490 or 1491. Above the inscription the scene is packed tight. Christ stands roped to a red column, his head sunk forward, while two men swing scourges of knotted leather thongs and a third, doubled over, draws his arm back for the next blow. At the foot of the column a man in pink kneels to tie a fresh bundle of birch twigs. Two onlookers in long red robes watch from the edges, one with his arms folded. The loincloth is so thin that the body shows through it, and the restorers who treated the panels in 2013 to 2015 found it well preserved.