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The Agony in the Garden
(Renaissance Europe )
The Agony in the Garden is an episode from the New Testament in which Christ, after the Last Supper and before his arrest, went to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray. During his prayers Christ expressed anguish and despair at his impending fate (his death at the Crucifixion) so was visited and comforted by an angel, appearing here in the upper right. Below are Christ’s three followers (Peter, John and James) whom he instructed to keep watch while he prayed but who fell asleep. Christ’s betrayer, Judas, and a group of Roman soldiers can be seen approaching from the distance. Probably intended for private devotions, the painting is a small-scale version of an altarpiece painted in the late 1520s by Garofalo, now at the Picture Gallery in his native Ferrara in northern Italy.
Provenance
Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object. Learn more about provenance at the Walters.
Don Marcello Massarenti Collection, Rome [date and mode of acquisition unknown] [1897 catalogue: no. 273, as School of Modena, 16th century]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1902, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.
Geographies
Italy, Ferrara (Place of Origin)
Measurements
Painted surface H: 16 5/16 x W: 10 13/16 in. (41.5 x 27.5 cm); Modern auxiliary panel H: 17 5/16 x W: 12 1/8 x D: 13/16 in. (44 x 30.8 x 2 cm) (unframed)
Credit Line
Acquired by Henry Walters with the Massarenti Collection, 1902
Location in Museum
Not on view
Accession Number
In libraries, galleries, museums, and archives, an accession number is a unique identifier assigned to each object in the collection.
In libraries, galleries, museums, and archives, an accession number is a unique identifier assigned to each object in the collection.
37.696