Agony in the Garden.

Adrian/Adriaen Huberti, more properly Adriaen Huybrechts I, a prominent Antwerp engraver, publisher of prints and maps, and art dealer, was active in the period between 1573 (when he was recorded as a member of the Guild of Antwerp) and 1614. Originally anti-Spanish and presumably pro-Protestant, when Spain recaptured Antwerp following the siege of 1584-85, he made pro-Spanish devotional and anti-heretical prints. He had a line in plates lettered in Spanish with its art market in mind. Huybrechts copied both Dürer and Schongauer, including all twelve engravings of the latter's Passion of Christ series, of which this is one, the final in the series (1584).

In <em>Learning to Look: A Handbook for the Visual Arts</em> (Chicago, 2014), Joshua C. Taylor writes of the 'silken elegance' of Schongauer's original print: 'The fine and surely drawn lines seem to begin and end in the air, moving as free agents with no allegiance to a patterned shape or single surface. And free agents they are because they reproduce directly the lines drawn by the hand of the artist'. Huybrechts cannot hope to match Schongauer's delicacy, but he is a highly capable printmaker who manages to capture the drama, and something of the human tenderness, of the German original of just over 100 years earlier.

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<em>The Agony in the Garden</em> depicts the episode when, immediately after the Last Supper, Jesus took a walk in the Garden of Gethsemane to pray. He felt great anguish and sadness, and said:  'My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass me by. Nevertheless, let it be as you, not I, would have it', and then added: '

If this cup cannot pass by, but I must drink it, your will be done!' (Matthew 26:42). The Apostles Peter, John and James, are shown sleeping a stone's throw away, although Jesus had asked them to stay awake and pray. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. Very shortly, Jesus will be betrayed by Judas and arrested by the Temple guards of the Sanhedrin, who are seen advancing on the right of this engraving.

Dr Mark Stocker, Curator Historical International Art

                                    November 2016