Agony in the Garden (from the Engraved Passion)

This powerful engraving shows Christ on the Mount of Olives with hands raised as he engages with a winged angel bearing a cross which appears in the sky. Three apostles, including Saint Paul in the foreground, sleep below, oblivious to the divine happening. Dürer’s virtuoso effects of light and dark enhance the dramatic impact of the nighttime scene, which is the first in the narrative cycle of his Engraved Passion.