Christ taking Leave of his Mother
Albrecht Altdorferprobably 1520
The National Gallery, London
London, United Kingdom
The Virgin Mary has collapsed with grief after learning that Christ, her son, has accepted his inevitable death as the will of God and is making to leave for Jerusalem. The episode is not recorded in the Bible, but it appears in a fourteenth-century German devotional text as well as in Passion plays, specifically one performed in the town of Augsburg. The Augsburg play included a series of exchanges between Christ and his mother, with Christ reassuring her that he must accept his fate as she makes emotional pleas for him to avoid it.
Altdorfer’s fascination with nature reflected a growing trend for depicting the natural world in detail and abundance, leading eventually to the emergence of landscape painting as an independent subject, rather than just a background. This panel is dominated by an enormous tree depicted in a wild and unruly state. Beyond the arch, a great swirling cloud glows red in the evening light – an allusion to the blood Christ shed at the Crucifixion.
Text: © The National Gallery, London
Painting photographed in its frame by Google Arts and Culture, 2023.
- Title: Christ taking Leave of his Mother
- Creator: Albrecht Altdorfer
- Date Created: probably 1520
- Physical Dimensions: 141 x 111 cm
- Medium: Oil on lime
- School: German (Danube)
- More Info: Explore the National Gallery’s paintings online
- Inventory number: NG6463
- Artist Dates: shortly before 1480 - 1538
- Artist Biography: Altdorfer was one of the most outstanding landscape painters. He lived for most of his life in the city of Regensburg on the Danube. Often grouped with the so-called Danube School, his work included landscape and natural plant forms as expressive elements even in religious works, such as the Gallery's 'Christ taking Leave of his Mother'. He painted brightly coloured images rooted in German Late Gothic love of ornament, and in its poetic feeling for nature. He also worked as a draughtsman, designer and printmaker, and pursued a career as an architect and town councillor. Altdorfer was born in about 1480 in Bavaria and was probably trained by his father Ulrich. He acquired rights of citizenship in Regensburg in 1505. During his lifetime various upheavals took place in the city, such as the conversion to Protestantism, and the expulsion of the Jews in 1519. His works suggest a knowledge of Italian painting, although whether he visited Italy itself remains an open question. It is virtually certain that on more than one occasion he travelled along the Danube. Altdorfer died in 1538 after a successful political life, and a prosperous artistic one; it is thought that he had a fairly large workshop.
- Acquisition Credit: Bought with contributions from The Art Fund (Eugene Cremetti Fund), The Pilgrim Trust and the National Heritage Memorial Fund, 1980
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