LIG | KRUIS | KROON

This striking triptych is a contemporary reimagining of original etchings by the French Baroque master, Claude Mellan, depicting Jesus Christ’s Passion. By deliberately enlarging the original images and focusing on specific sections of the works, the visuals have been newly composed. The result captures, in a profoundly moving way, intense emotions of suffering, sacrifice, sanctity, and glorification. The original black-and-white prints have been reprinted in rich gold, creating an aura of sacred radiance that resonates with the themes explored in Franco Prinsloo’s oratorio trilogy.

 

Each panel bears the wounds of Christ’s Passion—inflicted with deliberate force using thorn branches. These branches were dipped in gold listing and applied to the surface to scar and “torture” it—an act symbolically mirroring Christ’s own suffering. The lacerations were subsequently adorned with genuine gold leaf. In doing so, a powerful visual metaphor is formed: suffering made to shimmer, pain transformed into praise. The three panels—LIG, KROON, and KRUIS—invoke the Holy Trinity, rendered in a contemporary artistic style that remains reverent towards the tradition of medieval altarpieces.

 

The work was created in dialogue with Kroon van Wonders, the final part of Prinsloo’s monumental Afrikaans trilogy on the life of Christ. It serves as both commemoration and culmination. In both scale and vision, the oratorio cycle represents a significant milestone in South African art music. This triptych pays visual homage to that achievement with reverence and spiritual depth.Only three unique editions of the triptych are available for acquisition by private collectors or institutions. The work, consisting of three panels, will be sold exclusively as a complete set; no individual panel will be made available separately. Due to the distinctive technique involving the brutal application of thorn branches and the gilding with gold leaf, each of the three editions will yield a different result. Every artwork is thus entirely unique in its own right.