Resurrection of Christ

The date 1518 painted high in the corner may have been added later, but it fits the moment when Altdorfer finished the great Sebastian altar for the abbey of Sankt Florian in Upper Austria. This panel sat low on the altar, in the predella, paired with the Entombment. Both are seen from inside a dark cave, and here the darkness makes the event. Christ rises above the tomb in a disc of yellow light that sets the clouds burning orange and red, while the guards sprawl asleep among the rocks below. Painters of the Danube region liked to let the sky and the land react to the story, and in this case the sunrise and the Resurrection happen at once. The panel came to Vienna from the abbey around 1930.