The resurrection of Lazarrus

Jacquelin de Montluçon's Resurrection of Lazarus in the Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon is a companion panel to his Adoration of the Child, depicting the greatest of Christ's miracles before the Passion — the raising of Lazarus from the tomb four days after his death, the event that directly precipitated the decision to arrest and execute Jesus. This subject combined dramatic visual elements — the wrapped figure emerging from the tomb, the crowd's varied reactions of awe and astonishment — with profound theological stakes. Montluçon's provincial French treatment of this ambitious subject documents the reach of Italian and Flemish iconographic models into central France by the 1490s.

Christ gestures toward the tomb as Lazarus, still wrapped in burial linens, emerges or stands. The master organizes the surrounding crowd with varied reactions ranging from wonder to instinctive recoiling at the smell. The French-provincial style renders the scene with narrative clarity if without Flemish technical sophistication.