An Angel Catching the Blood of the Redeemer

Alesso di Benozzo's An Angel Catching the Blood of the Redeemer, painted around 1450 and now in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, depicts a theological image connected to the doctrine of the Precious Blood — the belief that Christ's blood shed at the Crucifixion was literally redemptive, with every drop carrying salvific power that angels carefully collected. The Blood of the Redeemer was a subject associated with particular devotional confraternities and with the contemplative tradition of the Passion, and its depiction demonstrates how late medieval theology generated highly specific pictorial subjects.

Tempera on panel. The angel is shown in active flight, swooping to catch the drops of blood falling from the crucified Christ — a compositional challenge that required conveying dynamic movement within the static frame. The blood is depicted as discrete red drops falling in an arc.