BOCCATI, Giovanni di Piermatteo
(b. ca. 1420, Camerino, d. 1487)

The Arrest of Christ (detail)

c. 1447
Tempera on wood
Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria, Perugia

The suggestively confused climax of the action takes place at the right side of the panel, in an enclosed, wooded garden of Gethsemane. Soldiers have battered down the garden's wattle fence, while three apostles flee in terror through the trees. No less violent is the scene of St Peter throwing himself upon Malchus, the High Priest's servant, to cut off his ear. The slender figure of Christ all but disappears in the melee.




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