The Arrest of Christ

One of a series of windows depicting the Passion of Christ, this panel shows the Arrest of Christ in the center. The museum owns two other panels from the same set (Flagellation of Christ and Christ Carrying the Cross). Here Judas, with a bag of money hanging around his neck, greets Christ, identifying him to be arrested by the soldiers grouped behind them. The disciple Peter stands at the left holding a sword, and the high priest’s servant, whose ear Peter cut off, lies in the foreground. The pane centered below shows a pedestal, as if supporting the image; and, that directly above represents the top part of a canopy with a pair of putti holding a swag of laurel. Together the central vertical group may have been intended to resemble a hooded lantern or reliquary. These center panes are flanked by ones with acanthus leaves from which emerge cornucopia supporting putti blowing horns. It appears that the individual panes have been trimmed down at some point. Note, for example, how the end of Peter’s sword and the bottom edge of the canopy, as well as the inside ends of the cornucopia horns, seem to have been cut off.