Christ Carrying the Cross
Sebastiano del Piombo (Italian, c. 1485–1547)
c. 1515–17
- Medium
- Oil on panel
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 118 × 92 cm (46 7/16 × 36 1/4 in.); Framed: 143.6 × 117.5 × 8.3 cm (56 1/2 × 46 1/4 × 3 1/4 in.)
- Culture
- Italy
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Credit line
- Lacy Armour, Ada Turnbull Hertle, Mary Swissler Oldberg Acquisition, Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection funds; Wirt D. Walker Trust; Alyce and Edwin DeCosta and the Walter E. Heller Foundation Fund; Estate of Walter Aitken;…
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
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 of Pope Clement VII.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
