Christ showing his wounds (John 20: 25-26)

Dieric Bouts painted this Christ Showing His Wounds around 1450, demonstrating his characteristic combination of intense psychological presence with the restrained formal language of Netherlandish devotional painting. The resurrected Christ displays the wounds of the Crucifixion—hands, feet, side—in the gesture known as Imago Pietatis, inviting the viewer's compassion and participation in his suffering. Bouts, working in Leuven from the 1460s, brought the emotional directness of Rogier van der Weyden into dialogue with the detailed naturalism pioneered by Jan van Eyck. This early work shows his commitment to devotional intensity expressed through precise observation of light, fabric, and the human face.

The wounded Christ is depicted with Bouts's characteristic precision, the wounds rendered with clinical accuracy while the still, frontal composition creates an icon-like intensity that invites meditative contemplation.