Marten De Vos, Attributed - Pilate's Wife's Dream

Oil on oak panel: 99 x 78 cm. Annotation on the right on the parquet panel: “EVANGELIUM / MATH. CAP. X » Old frame known as Berain, 17th century. Pilate's wife is only mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew, when Pilate asks the crowd whether to release Jesus or Barabbas. The procedure is suddenly interrupted: “While he was sitting on the platform, his wife made him say: “Do not interfere in the affair of this righteous man! For today I was tormented in dreams because of him.” (Matthew 27:19). We do not know whether this intervention by Pilate's wife had any effect on her husband's attitude. At first, in any case, he does not seem to take this into account, since he resumes the procedure and finally gives in to the crowd, freeing Barabbas and handing over Jesus to be crucified. But as he washes his hands, to proclaim his innocence, he perhaps thinks of his wife's message: “I am innocent of this blood. It’s your business!” (Matthew 27:24) His wife did not want him to get involved in Jesus' business, and he now gets rid of it by making it the matter of the crowd: "It's your business, it's not your business. is no longer mine!” Only the evangelist Matthew refers to Pontius Pilate's wife. She sends a message to her husband to tell him that Jesus is righteous. But in The Acts of Pilate, an apocryphal gospel from the 4th century, the version is more detailed. This is an unusual subject that Martien de Vos, a Flemish Mannerist painter from the second half of the 16th century, chose to treat. In this painting we find the Venetian influence which Martin de Vos, one of the first Romanist painters, suffered with great success throughout his long career.