Lyversberg Passion (detail)

The picture shows one of the wings of an altarpiece known as the Lyversberg Passion.

The altarpiece constituted the high altar of the Carthusian church of St Barbara, donated by the Cologne merchant Johann Rinck and his son the lawyer Dr Peter Rinck. Thence it came into the Lyversberg collection. The painting includes an echo of a work by Dieric Bouts, which was then in the church of St Laurenz in Cologne and is now in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 8 minutes): Johann Sebastian Bach: St. Matthew Passion BWV 244 (excerpts)