Christ on the Cross, painted by Yakov Hapalov, is the third picture to adorn the central panel of Ackermann’s retable. This picture was characterised in the church chronicle in 1877 with the words: ‘The new picture that, pursuant to the new style, has been painted using a full brush, is of an entirely serious nature, so that it should have quite an uplifting effect.’ (See: Simuna kroonika 1619–1919 [Simuna Chronicle 1619–1919]. Ed. Janis Tobreluts, 2013, p. 167).

Before Hapalov’s painting, ‘a beautiful new altar painting with a gilded frame by the painter of historical pictures and portrait painter Carl Walther in Tallinn’ was mounted on the baroque retable on 30 May 1836. ‘[…] The Secretary of the Manngericht [civilian court of the first instance] Dr. Carl Julius Paucker commissioned and donated it to the church,’ as can be read in the church chronicle (see: Simuna kroonika 1619–1919, pp. 119–120). Only a sketch of Walther’s painting has survived.

Unlike the altar picture itself, a sketch of the altar painting created by Carl Siegmund Walther has survived and is deposited at the Art Museum of Estonia. One reason for removing Walther’s painting from the retable was evidently its poor physical condition. It is said in the church chronicle in 1877 that the painting is ‘unfortunately already rather old and soiled’. It was nevertheless not so old that it would not have been considered necessary to restore it for 15 roubles and to mount it in a frame above the pews of the nobility (see: Simuna kroonika 1619–1919, p. 167).