The Large Ecce Homo

1510 · Print · 28.89 × 45.4 cm

Can I see it?

Not on view at present

Where is “The Large Ecce Homo” now? Collection: Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis. Not on view at present. Checked September 29, 2026.

Minneapolis Institute of Art

Minneapolis, United States

It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.

Checked: 12 days ago
In this state since: Sep 25, 2026
Source: The museum

On the map Museum page

About the work

Lucas van Leyden was the outstanding artist of the Renaissance in Holland. In his superb paintings, drawings, engravings and woodcuts, he still excites the eye and draws the viewer into his rich world of narrative. According to his early biographer Karel van Mander, Lucas would have been just 16 years old when he produced this image. Even if Lucas was not quite that young, we see him creating one of the most complex and subtle engravings ever made at that time.

Read on

Lucas sets the scene amid a grand architectural complex of palaces and towers flanking an elevated plaza that serves as a stage. A boisterous crowd gathers as Pontius Pilate invites them to determine the fate of Christ who is bound at the wrists and wears the crown of thorns and the mantle that his tormenters placed on his shoulders. As Pontius Pilate proclaims, Ecce homo (Behold the man), people gathered at windows and parapets of the surrounding buildings look on impassively.

Details of courtly and military costume, Netherlandish renaissance architecture, and mountainous landscape invite our eyes to roam through this microcosm. The range of lighting effects within the image as well as the minute description are so skillfully executed that, in this era, Albrecht Dürer was the only other artist capable of such feats of engraving. The closely modulated atmospheric perspective works in tandem with the forceful perspectival lines of recession that push our gaze deep into the image, where the main action of the story unfolds.

Minneapolis Institute of Art