ALSACIAN SCHOOL circa 1460-1470 The Arrest of Christ Parquet panel (small missing) 63 x 60 cm PROVENANCE : - Private collection, Alsace - Private collection, Paris NOTE : - We propose to situate our painting in the Alsatian milieu around 1460 - 1470, in this geographical area that stretches from Strasbourg to Colmar, from Karlsruhe to Basel, all around the Rhine. It may have been part of a polyptych, probably devoted to the Passion of Christ, in which our painting would be placed after a Prayer in the Garden of Olives. However, it is also possible that it was an isolated panel, the presence of the penitent in the lower left with his phylactery pointing in this direction. - Stylistically, the painting is similar to the work of the Karlsruhe Passion Master, whose work is shared between the Karlsruhe and Cologne museums (see the catalogue of the exhibition Die Karlsruher Passion, Karlsruhe, 1996). In addition to certain details (the starry night, the heterogeneous weapons, the curious helmets, the colourful outfits), there are also more formal similarities (the compactness of the group, the nervousness of the extremities, the juxtaposed colours). - In a very good state of conservation, which is common for German paintings from this period, it is of fine pictorial quality, with a certain humour (see the soldier with the rope around his neck, worthy of a Western villain), and the fine detail of the snow-capped mountains, which would be found a few years later in Grünewald's work.