The Risen Christ Appearing to the Virgin
Francesco Solimena (Italian, 1657–1747)
c. 1708
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Framed: 250.2 x 197.5 x 12.7 cm (98 1/2 x 77 3/4 x 5 in.); Unframed: 222.5 x 169.5 cm (87 5/8 x 66 3/4 in.)
- Culture
- Italy
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, European Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
The dramatic contrasts of light and dark reveal the long aftereffects of Caravaggio in Naples. Yet, the elegant forms, rich colors, and perfected body of Christ have far more affinities with the idealizing strand of Italian art in the 1600s and 1700s. Solimena sought to improve on nature, based on the study of antiquity, aiming to create a work of grandeur and nobility meant to inspire reverence and devotion appropriate to the holy subject.