Flemish School of Mechelen, 17th century

Flemish School of Mechelen, 17th century.
"Christ in the Garden of Olives".
Alabaster carved in bas-relief with golden reflections.
Presumably original frame.
Small cracks and chips, faded gilt, probably partly later gilted details.
Measurements: 12.5 x 10 cm; 21.5 x 19.5 cm (frame).
According to the four Gospels, immediately after the Last Supper, Jesus took a walk to pray in Gethsemane, the garden at the foot of the Mount of Olives. Jesus was accompanied by three Apostles, Peter, John and James, whom he asked to stay awake and pray. He went "a stone's throw" away from them, where he felt an overwhelming sadness and anguish. An angel came from heaven to strengthen him.
Alabaster was a material widely used in European sculpture, especially between the 14th and 17th centuries. Its relative availability and its characteristic of being easy to sculpt made it a very suitable material for both large monuments and small objects, for mass production and for individual works, from England to Spain and from France to the Netherlands, Germany and Poland.
The foundations of the Mechelen alabaster industry were laid by a small group of artists, some of them foreigners, who worked in the early 16th century for the court of Margaret of Austria in the then new Renaissance style that had been imported from Italy. Their presence in Mechelen stimulated local carvers to work alabaster in this new vocabulary of forms.
The main products of these so-called "minor works carvers" were these small altarpieces decorated with mythological and biblical themes that were produced well into the first half of the 17th century.