This dramatic portrayal of Saint Sebastian by Hans Baldung reflects the mid-15th century Northern tradition of focussing on the suffering of the saint, nude and pierced with arrows, as opposed to the Italian images of the saint holding an arrow. As with images of Christ or the Virgin and Child, devotional images of saints were placed in houses as protection against certain events or ailments, and invocations or prayers were made to the saint. Woodcuts or engravings of saints were mostly portraits of the saint holding their attribute. This image is more sophisticated, set against a landscape backdrop, with the cupids and swirling clouds providing added drama and emotion. It shows how far the art of the woodcut had come by 1514, thanks to the experimentation of major artists like Albrecht Dürer, with whom Baldung trained.

Although it had been written down earlier, the cult of Saint Sebastian was made popular though Jacob de Voragine's Golden Legend of about 1255. According to the legend he was an officer serving the Roman Emperors Diocletian and Maximilian, sentenced to death in 286 for his Christian faith. He was shot by arrows but survived, then was bludgeoned to death and his body thrown into the sewers in Rome. Veneration of his image rose in popularity when he became associated with protection against the plague, first in 680 in Rome, but especially from about 1350 in Italy during the Black Death, and not in Germany until an outbreak of the plague in about 1450.