1516
oil
panel
From the collection of Art Institute of Chicago
Christ Carrying the Cross is a 1516 oil by Sebastiano del Piombo, a High Renaissance work, depicting Christ Carrying the Cross, held at Art Institute of Chicago.
A tired man stumbles under a wooden cross, his face streaked with blood. A stranger reaches to help while a soldier watches, hand on his sword. The sky glows behind them, soft and golden. This painting was made for quiet prayer, not grand churches. People in the 1500s kept small devotional panels like this at home—something to focus on during moments of worry or grief. The way light spills across Christ’s face and the cross’s rough grain makes the scene feel close enough to touch. If you like how the light and shadow pull you into the moment, look up *chiaroscuro*.
Devotional paintings of Jesus carrying the cross were highly sought after in the 16th century, and Sebastiano del Piombo created numerous versions of this subject. Here, Simon of Cyrene attempts to help Christ lift the heavy cross while a Roman soldier looks on menacingly. The powerful diagonals of the cross, poignant expressions of the figures, and luminous landscape background all serve to heighten the composition’s dramatic impact. A follower of Michelangelo and a rival of Raphael, Sebastiano was one of the most distinguished artists of the High Renaissance in Rome and the favorite painter…
Ochoa-Herrera family, Calle Muñoz y Garnica, Jaén, Spain, by at least 1956 but probably earlier [according to e-mail correspondence of February 19 and 26, 2016, between David Durán and Rebecca Long; copy in curatorial file. See also photograph of painting from 1956, labeled “collection of the widow Ochoa” and “Jaén,” in Arxiu Mas, Barcelona; copy in curatorial file]; sold by the family to Durán Arte y Subastas, Madrid, May 27, 2015, lot no. 78; bought by Goldengate Arts Ltd., Dublin [according to export license of July 23, 2015; copy in curatorial file]; sold to Colnaghi/Coll y Cortés, London…
New York, Carlton Hobbs LLC, A Joint Exhibition of Old Master Paintings, Sculptures and Decorative Arts Together with Colnaghi and Tomasso Brothers, January 21-30, 2016, no cat. no.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Sebastiano del Piombo (Italian: ; c. 1485 – 21 June 1547) was an Italian painter of the High Renaissance and early Mannerist periods, famous as the only major artist of the period to combine the colouring of the…
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