This carving of exquisite complexity was surely intended for prayer during Holy Week, when the full drama of the final days of Jesus’ life are traced. In the lower half of the bead, Pontius Pilate washes his hands of responsibility for the fate of Jesus. In a master stroke, the carver has made the stream of water stand free of the background. As if to remind us to look carefully, he shows a figure near the front poring over a text with the aid of magnifying glasses. Is the artist also hinting that magnification facilitated his own work? The carving warrants a careful look, for at the back Jesus is led away and then flogged.
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Inscription: (Exterior legend of upper half): [image of a flower] LEVEMVS . CORDA . NOSTRA . CVM MANIBVS . AD . D[OMI]N[V]M : I[N] . C[A]E[LO] ([image of a flower] Let us raise our hearts with [our] hands to the Lord in heaven. [Lamentations 3:41])
(Exterior legend of lower half): [image of a flower] ATTENDITE . ET . VIDETE . SI EST . DOLOR . SICVT . DOLOR ([image of a flower] Look and see if [there] is sorrow like [my] sorrow [Lamentations 1:12])
(Along legend of interior of upper half): [image of a flower] O CRVX . AVE . SPE[S] VIN [VNICA] / HOC PASSIONIS . TEMPORE . AVGE . PIIS / IVSTICIA'[M] REIS ([image of a flower] O Cross, hail, [our] only hope. In this time of suffering, increase justice for holy things [from Venantius Fortunatus, ‘Vexilla regis’, Good Friday hymn]).
(Along legend of interior of lower half): [image of a flower] Nos . Pilatvs . cond[e]mpnam[u]s [condemnamus]. ih[sv]m . flagellari . in monte calvario crvcifigi . et in altv[m] elevari ([image of a flower] We, Pilate, condemn Jesus to be lashed, to be crucified on Mount Calvary, and to be raised on high [Matthew 27:22, Mark 15, John 18-19]).
Private Collection, Cordova; Dealer, London; Baron Albert Oppenheim, Cologne(sold 1906); J. Pierpont Morgan (American), London and New York (1906–1917)
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. "The Life of Christ: a loan exhibition of works of art illustrating episodes in the life of Christ," March 12–April 25, 1948.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Incisive Images: Ivory and Boxwood Carvings, 1450–1800," March 13–November 25, 2007.
Toronto. Art Gallery of Ontario. "Small Wonders: Gothic Boxwood Miniatures," November 5, 2016–January 22, 2017.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Small Wonders: Gothic Boxwood Miniatures," February 22–May 21, 2017.
Molinier, Emile. Collection du Baron Albert Oppenheim: Tableaux et objets d'art, catalogue précédé d'une introduction. Paris: Librairie Centrale des Beaux-Arts, 1904. no. 94, p. 41, pl. LXII.
Williamson, George Charles. Catalogue of the Collections of Jewels and Precious Works of Art: The Property of J. Pierpont Morgan. Deluxe ed. London: Chiswick Press, 1910. no. 40, pp. 63, 64–65, pl. XXIV, color pl. 17.
Dingelstedt, Kurt. "Betnuß." Reallexikon zur Deutschen Kunstgeschichte 2 (1948). pp. 377–78.
The Life of Christ: A Loan Exhibition of Works of Art Illustrating Episodes in the Life of Christ. Hartford, CT: Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, 1948. no. 190, p. 33.
Romanelli, Susan J. "South Netherlandish Boxwood Devotional Sculpture 1475–1530." PhD diss., Columbia University, 1992. no. 20, pp. 262–65, 42–43, 57, 62, 140, fig. 31–34.
Boehm, Barbara Drake, and Alexandra Suda. "The Material." In Small Wonders: Gothic Boxwood Miniatures, edited by Lisa Ellis, and Alexandra Suda. Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 2016. p. 16.
Boehm, Barbara Drake, and Alexandra Suda. "Devotion." In Small Wonders: Gothic Boxwood Miniatures, edited by Lisa Ellis, and Alexandra Suda. Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 2016. p. 96.
Dandridge, Pete, and Lisa Ellis. "Making." In Small Wonders: Gothic Boxwood Miniatures, edited by Lisa Ellis, and Alexandra Suda. Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 2016. pp. 26, 27.
Dandridge, Pete, and Lisa Ellis. "Workshop Practices." In Small Wonders: Late-Gothic Boxwood Micro-Carvings from the Low Countries, edited by Frits Scholten. Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum, 2016. pp. 521, 550–51, 558–59, 568–69, fig. 248, 258–59, 264.
Falkenburg, Reindert. "Prayer Nuts Seen Through the 'Eyes of the Heart'." In Small Wonders: Late-Gothic Boxwood Micro-Carvings from the Low Countries, edited by Frits Scholten. Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum, 2016. pp. 129–30, fig. 73.
Scholten, Frits, ed. Small Wonders: Late-Gothic Boxwood Micro-Carvings from the Low Countries. Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum, 2016. no. 27, pp. 216–17, 614.
Scholten, Frits. "The Boxwood Carvers of the Late Gothic Netherlands." In Small Wonders: Late-Gothic Boxwood Micro-Carvings from the Low Countries, edited by Frits Scholten. Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum, 2016. pp. 60, 63.
Scholten, Frits. "Statuettes: 'Taillee en bois bien fecte'." In Small Wonders: Late-Gothic Boxwood Micro-Carvings from the Low Countries, edited by Frits Scholten. Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum, 2016. p. 440.
Scholten, Frits. "Scale, Prayer and Play." In Small Wonders: Late-Gothic Boxwood Micro-Carvings from the Low Countries, edited by Frits Scholten. Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum, 2016. pp. 178–79, fig. 81.
Boehm, Barbara Drake, and Alexandra Suda. "Handpicked: Collecting Boxwood Carvings from the Sixteenth to the Twenty-First Centuries." In Small Wonders: Late-Gothic Boxwood Micro-Carvings from the Low Countries, edited by Frits Scholten. Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum, 2016. pp. 380–81, fig. 163.
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