The Road to Calvary

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Artist: Master of the Housebook (German)
Medium: Drypoint in black on ivory laid paper
Size: Image: 12.9 × 19.3 cm (5 1/8 × 7 5/8 in.); Sheet, trimmed within platemark: 13 × 19.4 cm (5 1/8 × 7 11/16 in.)
Museum: Art Institute of Chicago
Rights: CC0 — no rights reserved

This dramatic depiction of Christ’s suffering on his way to the Crucifixion is one of the first examples of drypoint by the anonymous master who invented this method of engraving. In drypoint the image is drawn directly on a metal plate with a sharp instrument, a process that preserves the artist’s personal “handwriting” and imparts to the print a characteristically velvety line. Here the printmaker skillfully exploited the soft, atmospheric effects, silvery shadows, and sense of delicate, luminous distances that are attainable in drypoint.

The forest of lances that juts up behind the hills in the background also creates the illusion of depth. The central motif is Christ’s ordeal at the hands of three soldiers who force him and Simon of Cyrene, an innocent bystander, onward to the Mount of Calvary. On the left, the grieving figure of Mary, supported by the apostle John, is strikingly juxtaposed with the utterly indifferent soldier on the right, who has turned his back on the whole scene. This impression of The Road to Calvary is one of only three versions of this print. The Rijksprenten kabinet in Amsterdam owns eighty of the approximately ninety surviving prints by his hand.

Text: Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0.