Scenes from Christ's Passion: The Mass of Saint Gregory

The Master of the Aachen Altar was a Cologne painter active around 1480-1520 who produced complex Passion cycles for Rhineland churches. This Mass of Saint Gregory in the Walker Art Gallery depicts the miraculous apparition of Christ to Pope Gregory during Mass, a subject that affirmed the doctrine of transubstantiation. The tempera medium required careful preparation on a gessoed panel and a disciplined layering technique that produced precise, durable surfaces suited to the intricate detail expected of devotional painting.

The panel presents the miraculous vision with the detailed liturgical setting and precise iconographic elements typical of Cologne devotional painting, rendered in the rich warm palette of the Rhineland school.