The Bearing of the Cross, a scene from The Passion of Christ

The painted panels in the Wolsey Closet are surviving fragments from more than one set of early 16th-century paintings telling the story of The Passion of Christ. The account of Christ's last days before his crucifixion was well known to all Christians and visual representations of this story could be seen in churches and important buildings across Europe. Artists followed accepted ways of portraying the events, often repeating the same elements of the story in order to meet the demands of religious and secular patrons who wanted to display visual proof of their own piety and faith.

Under Roman law, those condemned to die by crucifixion were forced to carry the cross themselves to the place of execution. Here, on a painted panel inserted into the west wall of the Wolsey Closet, the unknown artist seems to be using Raphael's Christ Falling on the Way to Calvary of 1515-16 for his design. In both paintings, Christ is shown on his knees, dragged by a rope around his waist, his eyes turned toward his mother. We can also recognise the figure of St Veronica, holding her attribute of a veil that has miraculously retained the image of Christ's face after she has wiped his brow.

The panels have been in the Wolsey Closet at Hampton Court since at least the early 1700s, but could have been assembled from more than one other location and cut down to fit their new home. The artists may have come from continental Europe, attracted to the courts of Henry VII or Henry VIII when the Tudor monarchs were seeking to establish and celebrate their supremacy through the expression of artistic and cultural magnificence.