"Master of the Passion Panels" is the name of an unknown painter who was active around 1400. The name comes from three small-format panels of paintings of the Passion, which were part of a presumably multi-scenic narrative series: besides "Christ before Caiaphas" (Vienna, Austrian Gallery Belvedere) and a "Crucifixion with Mary and John" (Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum), "Christ nailed to the Cross" from the Städel Museum is one of them. The appearance of the original ensemble can probably be imagined as being similar to the panel of a Cologne master kept in the Berlin Gemäldegalerie (ca. 1410/20), which also consists of almost square picture fields. It remains difficult to assign the artist to a specific city or region. In addition to Vienna or Salzburg, Swabia, the Upper Rhine and the Lake Constance region were suggested, whereby the painter apparently also adopted Burgundian and Italian influences.
