The Pensive Christ and the Virgin Mary Grieving

These two small panels belong together, a folding pair made for private prayer. On one, Christ sits crowned with thorns, worn and waiting, the figure known as the Man of Sorrows. On the other, his mother turns away in grief, the Mater Dolorosa, her hands drawn against her chest. Holbein painted them in Basel around 1520, when pictures like these still filled the city's churches and homes. Within a decade that changed hard. In 1529 the Reformation reached Basel, and crowds moved through the churches pulling down and burning religious images. An object like this survived largely because it was small, private, and easy to put away. The grief is kept close and quiet, each figure held alone on its own panel.