1595, Alsace

1595, Alsace

Identifier
11.148.3
Transfer of custody
Victoria and Albert Museum
Acquisition
Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1911
Collection
Material
Technique
Depiction
Dimension
100.3 cm (height)
75.6 cm (width)
Production time
Production place
Type of object

Description

With subtlety and dexterity, this tapestry's weavers- who apparently used the monograms AR and ICM- borrowed, enlarged, reversed, and added color to Albrecht Dürer’s design for the woodcut of Christ washing the disciples’ feet in his 1511 Small Passion series.This panel is part of a group of similarly sized scenes from the New Testament, woven across more than two decades, all closely based upon printed prototypes by Hans Baldung Grien, Hans Schäufelein, Martin Schongauer and Hans Wechtlin, as well as by Dürer. Together with other surviving tapestry panels now in the Museum Haus Löwenberg in Gengenbach and spread across private collections, these small, captioned Biblical scenes were probably made on speculation for sale to Protestant individuals and religious institutions in the Strasburg area around the turn of the seventeenth century.