Based on passages in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, this painting depicts Christ after his interrogation by Pilate, when he was taken to a room, stripped of his robe, and crowned with thorns. His tormenters offered him a reed as a scepter and mocked him, "Hail, King of the Jews." Gossaert conveys the poignancy of the moment through Christ's sensitive expression as he looks heavenward in an appeal to God the Father. Long ignored, the recently cleaned and restored painting has only now been recognized as Gossaert's original from which many reduced copies (some dated 1527) were made. The popularity of the composition must have been due in part to the remarkably muscular body of Christ, which was derived from the famous 1st century Roman marble the Belvedere Torso, which Gossaert saw during his trip to Rome in 1508-09. (http://www.metmuseum.org)