Image Details

Walters Art Gallery, MS. W. 185, FOL. 58V

“Flagellation of Christ.” The Hours of the Virgin in some Books of Hours were illustrated not with the usual Infancy of Christ, but with his Passion. A Dutch Horae of about 1410–15 has a series of small, but powerful, pictures of the brutal events of the trial, torture and death of Christ. This “Flagellation” marks the Hour of Terce—the 9:00 a.m. prayer. With a cat-o’-nine-tails and a bundle of bloody sticks, two men beat Christ with sadistic delight, causing him to bleed from head to toe. The illuminator of this manuscript is unknown, but, like other north Netherlandish artists of this period, he makes use of a somber, if at times harsh, style of realism.