Christ on the Mount of Olives

Christ on the Mount of Olives at St. Florian Monastery belongs to the Passion cycle Altdorfer painted for that Augustinian institution — his most sustained engagement with narrative religious imagery. The Agony in the Garden was a subject particularly suited to Altdorfer's gifts: a night scene with supernatural light, a solitary figure in a landscape, and the disciples sleeping nearby in uneasy vulnerability. Altdorfer had painted this subject multiple times, and the St. Florian version shows the integration of moonlit landscape with devotional narrative that characterises his finest religious work. The monastery's collection preserves several of Altdorfer's panels, suggesting that the relationship between artist and institution was long and productive.

Panel with sophisticated night-lighting effects — moonlight and the divine light of the angel differentiated in colour temperature and direction. The sleeping disciples are handled with broad, summary brushwork appropriate to their secondary narrative role. Rocky landscape detail is consistent with Altdorfer's mature treatment of the Danube valley terrain.