Things to know about paintings of Christ's Passion

• According to Mark the soldiers took Jesus inside the courtyard of Pilate's house. They dressed him in purple (Matthew says a scarlet mantle), and having plaited a crown of thorns, placed it on his head. Then they saluted him with, "Hail, King of the Jews!" They beat him about the head with a cane and spat upon him, then knelt and paid mock homage to him.

• Christ is seated on a dais, the crown of thorns on his head, dressed in a red or purple robe and holding a reed sceptre. Soldiers are about to strike him, or kneel in mock homage. 

• A popular convention in Italian painting of the 15th and 16th centuries shows two soldiers each holding a cane or a staff with which they press down the crown of thorns, the canes forming the shape of a cross. This may have been the way the scene was performed in medieval religious drama. 

• Southern artists tend to depict the crown of thorns as being made from smaller-thorned plants, in contrast to the horrifyingly large spines of German and Netherlandish painters. 

• The theme became more widespread in Christian art from the 14th century, possibly because the 'true' crown of thorns was displayed as a relic at about this time.

• In paintings of the Scourging/Flagellation, Christ was usually shown bound to a column, perhaps in the colonnade that formed part of Pilate's praetorium or judgement hall. 

• Artists had to show Jesus receiving the strokes on his back, but at the same time with his face visible. Early Renaissance painting overcame this by having him stand full face, bound by the wrists to a very narrow column so that his figure was not obscured. Otherwise he stands in front of the column, his hands bound behind his back, and seems to be receiving the strokes on the front of his body. 

• There are usually two or three soldiers whipping Jesus. They use birches or thong whips. One sits nearby tying a fresh bundle. Pilate may be present, enthroned on the seat of judgement and perhaps wearing a laurel crown, the Roman emblem of his authority.

The Flagellation of Christ, Caravaggio

The Scourging of Christ, Titian