Advanced Search 
View: Overall
Tapestry: Christ Before Pilate and Herod, from the series THE PASSION OF CHRIST
Flemish
late 15th century
Object Place: Flanders
Medium/Technique
Tapestry weave (wool warp; wool and some silk wefts)
Dimensions
417.2 x 901.7 cm (164.25 x 355 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Robert Treat Paine, 2nd, in memory of his son, Walter Cabot Paine
Accession Number29.1046
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsEurope, Fashion and Textiles
ClassificationsTextiles
DescriptionThe tapestry shows six scenes from the Passion of Christ. The iconography is based on accounts in the Gospels, with variations and additions taken from mystery plays. The scenes are: Christ before Pilate, Christ before Herod, Christ returns to Pilate, the Flagellation,and Christ crowned with thorns. Predominant colors: reds, blues, greens, purples (faded), yellows, cream, brown and black. Most of the blacks have rotted away and been replaced with dark browns. Some restorations, chiefly along bottom edge which was torn.
ProvenanceLionel Sackville-West, 2nd Baron Sackville (b. 1827 - d. 1908), Knole House, Kent [see note 1]; to his daughter, Victoria Sackville-West (b. 1862 - d. 1936) and her husband, Lionel Sackville-West, 3rd Baron Sackville (b. 1867 - d. 1928), Knole; 1929, sold from the Sackville-West collection to Robert Treat Paine, II (b. 1861 - d. 1943), Boston; 1929, gift of Robert Treat Paine to the MFA. (Accession Date: October 3, 1929)
NOTES:
[1] Lionel Sackville-West, Knole House: Its State Rooms, Pictures, and Antiquities (Sevenoaks, 1906), p. 54, colorpl. According to family tradition, the tapestry was acquired in the sixteenth century by Archbishop Warham or his successor, Archbishop Cranmer, for the chapel at Knole
NOTES:
[1] Lionel Sackville-West, Knole House: Its State Rooms, Pictures, and Antiquities (Sevenoaks, 1906), p. 54, colorpl. According to family tradition, the tapestry was acquired in the sixteenth century by Archbishop Warham or his successor, Archbishop Cranmer, for the chapel at Knole