The Man of Sorrows from the New Town Hall in Prague

[2] In comparison with the Old Town Hall statue, the frontal stance is disturbed by a slight rotational movement and turning of the body away from the right leg, which is thrust forward.

The sculptor balances in virtuoso fashion on the borderline between the Beautiful Style and the new artistic approach emphasising states of emotional tension.

[3] In comparison with the sculpture’s model, the perizoma is less segmented, and on the right side in front it has the minor motif of a pleat, which is not found in other works by the Master of the Týn Calvary.

[4] The heightened expression as compared to the older work of the Master of the Týn Calvary is similar to that of the Crucifixion in Svatý Jan pod Skalou (ca.

[7] At the same time, it fulfilled the requirement of the Utraquists for Eucharistic iconography that both the body and blood of Christ should be depicted, and so it was spared during the later iconoclastic riots.

It was also in Bohemia that the representation of the Eucharistic Man of Sorrows with a chalice and a host had its origin, for example in the stained-glass windows of the Church of all Saints in Slivenec (ca.

Close analogies with the sculptures of the Man of Sorrows in Prague can be found in statues on the same theme, in the Singer Gate in St Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna (last quarter of the 14th century), or from a later period the stone statue in the Church of St Dorothy in Wroclaw (1430) and the well-known Man of Sorrows by Hans Multscher from the Ulm Minster (1429).

[8] During them, it was discovered that the composition of the pigments was identical for both statues of the Man of Sorrows – organic colouring-matter from dyer's alkanet and cochineal for the skin colouring, vermilion, lac dye, and madder for the bloodstains, and lead white, chalk, and linseed oil on the perizoma.