Christ Comforted by an Angel

Title: Christ Comforted by an Angel

Artist: Paul Troger

Medium: Oil on canvas

Size: tbd.

Date: c. 1730

Location: Museo Diocesano, Camerino, Italy.

Mark 14:32-36 They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, "Sit here while I pray." He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death," he said to them. "Stay here and keep watch."

Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. "Abba, Father," he said, "everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will."

The Cup of which Jesus speaks echoes the statement he made to James and John, the sons of Zebedee, when they asked that they sit next to him in his glory (Mark 10:37). Jesus replied "Can you drink the cup I drink, or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?" Jesus often used the symbolism of the cup when referring to his fate, and may allude to the Cup of Judgment that appears often in the Old Testament.

Paul Troger (October 30, 1698 – July 20, 1762) was an Austrian painter, draughtsman and printmaker of the late Baroque period. Troger settled in Vienna in 1728 and became one of the best representatives of the Viennese Rococo painting. He alloyed successfully the Italian (Venetian and Neapolitan) traditions with the ideas of contemporary Austrian painting. He became director of the Academy of Art in Vienna, and influenced significant artists of the next generation, notably Franz Anton Maulbertsch, Josef Ignaz Mildorfer, Johann Wenzel Bergl.