Christ Carrying the Cross

Details

GIOVANNI BATTISTA NALDINI (FIESOLE C. 1537-1591 FLORENCE)
Christ Carrying the Cross
oil on copper, tondo
5 1/2 in. (14 cm.), diameter

Provenance

with Colnaghi, London, from whom acquired by,
Robert M. Edsel (b. 1956), Oak Park, IL; Sotheby’s, New York, 30 January 2014, lot 103, where acquired by the present owner.

Special notice

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Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

This exquisite small copper by Giovanni Battista Naldini relates to the painter’s first important commission as an independent painter, an altarpiece in the Badia in Florence, which can be dated to 1566. Christ is seen carrying the Cross, while a soldier just behind him pulls at it and Saint Veronica kneels with a cloth with which she is about to wipe Christ’s face at his right. The main difference in composition between the tondo and altarpiece is the placement of Christ; here we see him on both knees, crouching, with both hands on the cross. As here, in the altarpiece, Christ looks to Saint Veronica, but he leans back, not fully on his right knee, with his left hand around the cross and the right reaching toward the kneeling saint. The standing soldier at right in both paintings also changes stances, with his body turned to the right in the tondo, but facing left in the altarpiece. Two preparatory drawings for this composition are in the British Museum, London (inv. nos. P 1856-0712-9 and P 1856-0712-10).

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