Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane

Description

These two stained glass panels originally belonged to an extensive program of Old and New Testament subjects that originally decorated the cloister of the Cistercian Abbey of Mariawald, near Cologne, Germany. The original placement of glass at Mariawald involved windows composed of two openings. Each comprised three large glass panels plus a smaller tracery panel. Two scenes in each window represented Old Testament subjects (below) and the New Testament (above). Above the biblical narrative panels were smaller messenger panels depicting images of prophets with scrolls. At the base of each window were donor and patron saint panels. In this way, the Old Testament was shown to prefigure the events of the New. These two panels depicting scenes of Christ’s Passion were originally located in the north corner of the east cloister gallery with the Kiss of Judas on the left, and Christ in Gethsemane on the right. Mariawald was founded in 1480 and closed in 1802 when the stained glass windows were removed. Other panels from the series are preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Recent scholarship has attributed the glass to the Rhenish glass painters Everhard Rensig or Gerhard Remisch.

Provenance

Samuel Mather, Cleveland, Ohio.

Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane

Everhard Rensig

1522–26

Accession Number

1940.340.1

Medium

pot-metal and white glass, silver stain and sanguine

Dimensions

Overall: 73.7 x 71.8 cm (29 x 28 1/4 in.)

Classification

Glass

Museum

The Cleveland Museum of Art

Cleveland, United States

Credit Line

Gift of S. Livingstone Mather, Constance Mather Bishop, Philip R. Mather, Katherine Hoyt Cross, and Katherine Mather McLean in accordance with the wishes of Samuel Mather