Flagellation of Christ, with the Pavement
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
This engraving, part of the National Gallery of Art's Rosenwald Collection in Washington D.C., reproduces a design by Andrea Mantegna showing Christ bound to a column and beaten before his crucifixion, set on a strikingly patterned tiled floor, the pavement of the title. The print is not a woodcut but an intaglio engraving, cut into a copper plate with a burin and printed under pressure so that ink held in the incised lines transferred to damp paper [1]. Mantegna himself is recorded by his first biographer, Giorgio Vasari, as a printmaker of skill who used engraving to circulate images by his own hand, and Italian engravers of his circle worked in fine parallel hatching rather than the crosshatching favoured in Germany at the same date [1]. A print such as this one let a composition invented for a court patron in Mantua reach collectors, workshops and other artists who would never see a Mantegna painting in person. That reach, more than any single collector's cabinet, is why prints after Mantegna survive today in numbers a unique panel painting never could.
Where it is held
Held at National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., United States.
The impression is held in the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., as part of the Rosenwald Collection, the print collection assembled by Lessing J. Rosenwald and given to the National Gallery across the twentieth century.
What an engraving is and how it was made
Engraving is an intaglio process, the opposite of a woodcut. Instead of carving away the background so that raised lines print, the engraver cuts grooves directly into a metal plate, almost always copper, using a sharpened steel tool called a burin. Ink is worked into those grooves and wiped from the flat surface, then a sheet of dampened paper is forced into the plate under a press, pulling the ink out of the incisions onto the paper [1]. The technique had grown out of goldsmiths' work, where designs were cut into precious metal and proof impressions taken on paper simply to check a pattern before it moved to a finished piece [2]. By the third quarter of the fifteenth century, engraving had become a fine art in its own right, prized by a new kind of buyer: the educated collector who wanted prints and drawings for their own sake rather than as a step toward some other object [2].
Mantegna as a printmaker
Vasari, writing within a generation of Mantegna's death, singled him out for having taken delight in cutting his own figures onto copper for printing, a practice he judged genuinely valuable, and credited him directly with a group of engravings including a Bacchanalia, a Battle of the Sea Gods, a Deposition from the Cross, an Entombment and a Resurrection with Saints Longinus and Andrew [3]. Vasari's point was that these prints let the wider world see not just Mantegna's own inventions but, through the copies and imitations they spawned, the working manners of many other craftsmen besides. A print of the Flagellation on the Pavement belongs to this same current in Mantegna's practice: a devotional composition designed to be reproduced, rather than a unique painted commission for one patron.
Engraving after a painter's design
Not every print carrying an artist's compositional invention was cut by that artist's own hand. From the last quarter of the fifteenth century, Italian print production increasingly divided the roles of the inventor, who supplied the drawing or painted design, and the engraver, a specialist trained in handling the burin, who translated that design into the very different visual language of incised line and hatching. Mantegna's court position in Mantua, where he served the Gonzaga family from 1460 onward, meant his workshop had both the standing and the output to support this kind of collaboration, feeding designs to skilled engravers working in his manner [3].
Common questions
Is this print an original Mantegna engraving?
It reproduces a design by Mantegna, cut by Gian Marco Cavalli, an engraver associated with his circle in Mantua. Italian print workshops of this period regularly divided the inventor's design from the engraver's execution, so this pattern is typical rather than unusual.
What does 'the Pavement' refer to in the title?
It refers to the patterned tiled floor Mantegna set beneath the scene of Christ's flagellation, a strong architectural and geometric feature of the composition rather than a separate subject.
What is the Rosenwald Collection?
It is the collection of prints, drawings and illustrated books assembled by the American collector Lessing J. Rosenwald and given to the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. across the twentieth century, one of the largest print gifts the gallery has received.
How does an engraving differ from a woodcut?
A woodcut is a relief process: the printed lines are raised and the background is cut away. An engraving is an intaglio process: lines are cut into a metal plate with a burin, filled with ink, and pulled onto paper under a press, giving finer and more varied line work.
Sources
Editorial draws on the following references, verified against the museum and public-domain image record for this work.
- [1] book Snyder, James, 1928-1990, Northern Renaissance art : painting, sculpture, the graphic arts from 1350 to 1575 Used for: this artwork.
- [2] book Fred S. Kleiner;, Gardner's Art Through the Ages Used for: this artwork.
- [3] book Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, 1550 Used for: this artwork.
Editorial overseen by Solis Prints. Sources verified 2026-09-03. Click a source for details, or hover over [N] in the page above to preview.
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