Altar Frontal with Man of Sorrows and Saints

Altar Frontal with Man of Sorrows and Saints

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This altar frontal depicts Christ as the Man of Sorrows displaying the wounds from his Crucifixion. He wears the Crown of Thorns as well as the cloak in which he was dressed by Roman soldiers prior to his execution. A popular devotional image in the late Middle Ages, the Man of Sorrows incites the viewer's empathy with Christ's suffering. Here, Christ is accompanied by Saint John the Baptist and the Virgin on the left, and by saints John the Evangelist and Jerome on the right. The arms of the Nuremberg citizen Martin Pessler (died 1463) and his wife, Margarete Toppler (died 1469), appear at the bottom. This tapestry may well be one of the seven altar frontals Margarete is known to have given to the Lorenzkirche in Nuremberg, a parish church that was richly endowed by the city's merchant class in the late Middle Ages.

Medieval Art and The Cloisters

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Altar Frontal with Man of Sorrows and SaintsAltar Frontal with Man of Sorrows and SaintsAltar Frontal with Man of Sorrows and SaintsAltar Frontal with Man of Sorrows and SaintsAltar Frontal with Man of Sorrows and Saints

The Museum's collection of medieval and Byzantine art is among the most comprehensive in the world. Displayed in both The Met Fifth Avenue and in the Museum's branch in northern Manhattan, The Met Cloisters, the collection encompasses the art of the Mediterranean and Europe from the fall of Rome in the fourth century to the beginning of the Renaissance in the early sixteenth century. It also includes pre-medieval European works of art created during the Bronze Age and early Iron Age.