Christ holding the Cross, as the Man of Sorrows

Brescianino is first documented in Siena in 1507 and, apart from a short visit to Rome in 1516 to assist Baldassare Peruzzi with the decoration of the Villa Farnesina, he spent most of his time there. The present work can be dated to circa 1510-1515. By then he had absorbed the local styles of his first master, Girolamo del Pacchia, and the color and mannerism of Domenico Beccafumi, and had begun to combine with these the influences of Raphael, Fra Bartolommeo and Leonardo da Vinci, whose work he knew through frequent visits to Florence. The compositional and more sculptural style of Andrea del Sarto, which Brescianino adopted towards the end of his life, did not become dominant until circa 1516.

Comparison can be made between the present painting and the Madonna and Child with Saints John the Baptist and Jerome of circa 1510 in the Museo d'arte sacra della Val d'arbia (see M. Maccherini, in the catalogue of the exhibition, Domenico Beccafumi e il suo Tempo, Siena, 16 June - 4 November 1990, p. 296, no. 58). Both works display a slight rigidity to the figures and a liking for a centralized composition, evidence of the enduring mark made on Brescianino by Leonardo whose work he first came into contact with in Florence circa 1507.

We are grateful to Everett Fahy for suggesting and confirming the attribution on first-hand inspection.