Pietà (Vesperbild)

German

On view at The Met Cloisters in Gallery 16

The Virgin mourning over her son became a popular devotional subject in the later Middle Ages. Rigid in death, Christ's body bears the marks of his Passion. His small scale may reflect the writings of German mystics, who believed that the Virgin, in the agony of her grief, imagined she was holding Christ as a baby once again in her arms.

Pietà (Vesperbild), Poplar, plaster, paint, gilt, German

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