The Godly Child

The Massacre of the Innocents at Bethlehem is one of the most dramatic narratives surrounding the birth of Christ. King Herod was so enraged by the news of the birth of a child who would one day be more powerful than he, that he ordered all children under the age of two to be killed. The Holy Family had previously been warned by an angel to flee, whereupon they went to Egypt and the infant Jesus survived.

The story of the Massacre of the Innocents is depicted in a frieze-like manner across an unusually elongated, horizontally rectangular wooden panel. Men and women stand in alternating rows. The women are trying to protect their children. They kneel before the attackers and plead with them to spare their offspring. Some infants already lie dead on the ground; in a particularly dramatic detail, one is impaled on a sword. The murderous henchmen are depicted in the contemporary dress of Landsknecht mercenaries.

The painting was once the target of an act of vandalism. Deep scratches on the child murderers make it clear that someone was so enraged by the scene that they reached for a knife and sought to destroy the murderers themselves. This points to the powerful emotions that this depiction provoked.

The Massacre of the Innocents
Workshop of the Master of the Bruck St Martin Panel, c.1520/25
Tempera on spruce wood
Provenance: Bequest of Count Ignaz Attems, 1861
Inv. 376

This object in question is a portable altar (altare mobile, altare portatile). The back of the stone slab has an opening in which a relic was originally embedded. This is no longer present today.

Portable or travel altars were used primarily in the Middle Ages wherever there was no fixed altar (altare fixum). It is attested from an early period that the altar had to be consecrated by a bishop. This included the presence of a relic as well as the provision of a stone slab – referring to the stone mensa (the tabletop of an altar) required since the ninth century.

The painting on the wooden frame is difficult to make out in places. At the bottom edge is a figure from which two tendrils with foliage spring forth. This is a typical depiction of the Prophet Jesse as the starting point of the genealogical tree, extending through prophets and saints to Jesus Christ. The tendrils wind their way upwards along the sides, encircling several medallions with bust portraits, and culminate in a depiction of the Virgin Mary enthroned with the Child. Thanks to the inscriptions, some of the prophets can be identified: at the lower left is the medallion of Habakkuk; the upper row, from left to right, features the four ‘major prophets’ Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Isaiah and, presumably, Daniel. The smaller medallions on the sides may be depictions of saints. All the faces are turned toward the centre of the panel, that is, toward the chalice and paten when these were placed on the stone during Mass, or toward the embedded relic.

Portable altar depicting the Tree of Jesse
Styria, c.1280
Tempera on softwood, Fohnsdorf shell limestone
Provenance: On loan from the parish of Predlitz near Murau since 1952
Inv. L 10