With its light tones, rare colours and beautiful anatomy of Christ, there is something unsettling about this flagellation scene. Despite their violent gestures, the torturers appear to dance almost balletically around the figure of Christ, who exudes inner peace and goodness. The architecture, dominated by the somewhat improbable tempietto in the background, is one of a series of details evoking ‘Antiquity’ (marble paving, colonnades, armour). This, plus the fact that the physical portrayal of Christ echoes the art of Antoine Caron, would seem to point to the Mannerist approach of a painter who is doubtless French.