The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 24, 2025

Painted wood-carved Pietà, depicting Mary holding Christ's dead body in her lap. Mary has light skin tone, wearing purple robes and a white-grey cloth over her head. Her arms wrap around Christ. Christ's light skin tone has taken on a grey-pallor as his head tilts away from Mary, mouth open, right arm flopping down. He wears a gold and orange wrap, blood seeping from holes in his hands, feet, and a gash in his side.

Vesperbild (Pietà)

c. 1515–20

Master of Rabenden

(German)
Germany, Upper Bavaria, 16th century
lindenwood, polychromed and gilded
Overall: 89.1 x 78.7 x 32.4 cm (35 1/16 x 31 x 12 3/4 in.)
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1938.294
Location: 111 German and Austrian Gothic

Did You Know?

This sculpture sensitively depicts the Virgin cradling the body of Christ. This devotional image was likely placed near the altar in a German chapel. Imagine standing in a small, quiet chapel looking up at these lifelike figures with flickering candles casting dappled light onto their surface.

Description

Depicting the Virgin cradling Christ’s dead body, works like this one were known in German as vesperbilds, owing to their incorporation into the liturgy of the evening prayer (vespers) on Good Friday. The word pietà—from the Latin pietas, meaning "piety" or "compassion"—was also used to describe such works. Like other devotional image types that emerged in southern Germany in the later medieval period, vesperbilds encouraged viewers to contemplate Christ’s suffering and empathize with the Virgin’s sorrows more directly and emotively than ever before. This anonymous German artist is named after one of his most important works, the high altar of the church of Rabenden in the Chiemgau, the foothills of the Alps. The sculpture was likely placed in a secondary chapel in a Bavarian church.
  • Georg Schuster Collection, Munich, Germany; (Julius Böhler, Munich, Germany).
  • Milliken, William. "Late German Gothic Sculpture." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 26, no. 4 (April 1939): 43-46. Reproduced: p. 42; Mentioned: p. 44 www.jstor.org
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958. Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 191 archive.org
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. Reproduced: p. 76 archive.org
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. Reproduced: p. 76 archive.org
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 88 archive.org
    Cleveland Museum of Art, and Holger A. Klein. Sacred Gifts and Worldly Treasures: Medieval Masterworks from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2007. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 248-249, no. 93
  • J. Paul Getty Musuem, Los Angeles (10/30/2007 - 1/20/2008): "Sacred Gifts and Worldly Treasures: Medieval Masterworks from the Cleveland Museum of Art"
    Sacred Gifts and Worldly Treasures: Medieval Masterworks from the Cleveland Museum of Art. J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA (October 30, 2007-January 20, 2008).
  • {{cite web|title=Vesperbild (Pietà)|url=false|author=Master of Rabenden|year=c. 1515–20|access-date=24 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1938.294