Nativity and Passion of Christ

This highly attractive broadsheet is one of Traut's finest prints. It also exhibits how dependent the artist was on the designs of his contemporaries. The broadsheet contains of fifteen woodblocks plus a long German prayer. The Nativity in the centre is copied in reverse from a woodcut by Hans von Kulmbach, with whom Traut had worked in Dürer's atelier. Traut added a few minor details to the figures and the setting. The hand of God directs the viewer to the eleven Passion scenes at the top of the broadsheet. Traut loosely based his designs upon Dürer's Small Passion. Below are groups of ecclesiastics and secular figures who comprise the Christian estate.

Broadsheets, in which the images are accompanied by text, depict extraordinary happenings, omens, historical events, portraits, and traditional folktales. Nativity and Passion of Christ demonstrates clearly the practical function of broadsheets in a semi-literate society. The illustrations are placed around a German prayer which tells of Christ's birth and the redemption of mankind through his Passion. The Nativity with an Adoration of the Shepherds is represented in the centre, above which a hand is shown indicating various scenes from the Passion of Christ, which would be pointed out as the prayer was recited. Members of the Christian estate are represented on either side: on the left is a group of ecclesiastics behind a figure of the Pope, and on the right a cluster of secular figures are assembled behind the Holy Roman emperor.