Fragment from Christ Carrying the Cross: Saint John the Evangelist
1500
oil
panel
From the collection of Art Institute of Chicago
1500
oil
panel
From the collection of Art Institute of Chicago
Fragment from Christ Carrying the Cross: Saint John the Evangelist is a 1500 oil by Jean Hey, a Early Renaissance work, depicting John the Evangelist, held at Art Institute of Chicago.
You see a painting of Saint John the Evangelist, a figure from the Bible. He's dressed in robes and looks concerned. This painting is interesting because it was once part of a larger work, and scientists used special tools to figure out its past. The painting is a fragment of a bigger story. Check out the technique of glazing to learn more about how it was made.
Scientific imaging techniques, which can reveal information that lies below or has been removed from the surface layers of a painting, have determined that Saint John the Evangelist and the Mourning Virgin were once part of the same painting, Christ Carrying the Cross . Infrared reflectography revealed drawn strokes of Christ’s curling hair at the lower right of the Saint John panel. X-radiography shows that the top of the cross, still visible in the Saint John panel, occupied the lower left of Mourning Virgin before being scraped away and overpainted. The original work may have been…
M. Guggenheim, Venice, by 1892 [according to receipt in Art Institute Archives; sold to Martin A. Ryerson (d. 1932), Chicago, June 1892 [receipt cited above.]; by descent to his wife Carrie Hutchinson Ryerson (1859–1937), Chicago, 1932 [Last Will and Testament of Martin A. Ryerson, Died August 11, 1932, copy in Institutional Archives, Art Institute of Chicago]; bequeathed to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1937.
Paris, Galeries nationales, Grand Palais, France 1500: entre Moyen Age et Renaissance, 2010–11, no. 70b. Art Institute of Chicago, Kings, Queens, and Courtiers: Art in Early Renaissance France, Feb. 26-May 30, 2011, cat. 61.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Jean Hey (or Jean Hay) (fl. c. 1475 – c. 1505), now generally identified with the artist formerly known as the Master of Moulins, was an Early Netherlandish painter working in France and the Duchy of Burgundy, and…
See the richer artist page
