The Disrobing of Christ

This woodcut is a sheet from a blockbook, each page of which consists of an impression from a single woodblock on which both illustration and text had been carved in relief, the method the Chinese had first used 500 years earlier. The print was colored by hand, without the use of a stencil, and gold foil was affixed to the haloes. Fluidly tinted, the landscape setting includes three freely dashed-in trees, brushed directly on to the paper without any underlying linear foundation. Characteristic of polychromy practiced in Augsburg are the vermilion border around the whole picture, and the striping of blue across the top with blue strokes in the sky below it.