Christ with the Symbols of the Passion
Christ with the Symbols of the Passion
- Artist
- Lavinia Fontana
- Artist Dates
- 1552-1614
- Artist Nationality
- Italian
- Title
- Christ with the Symbols of the Passion
- Date
- 1576
- Medium
- oil on panel
- Dimensions
- 40 x 30.2 cm (15-3/4 x 11-7/8 in)
- K Number
- K1402
- Repository
- El Paso Museum of Art
- Accession Number
- 1961.1.36
- Notes
Provenance
(Julius Weitzner, New York); sold to Samuel H. Kress [1863-1955] on 24 July 1945; gift to El Paso Museum of Art in 1961, no. 1961.1.36.
Catalogue Entry
Lavinia Fontana
Christ with the Symbols of the Passion
K1402
El Paso, Tex., EI Paso Museum of Art (1961-2/32), since 1961.(1) Wood. 15 3/4 x 11 7/8 in. (40 x 30.2 cm.). Inscribed on a stone tablet at lower left: LAVINIA FONTANA VI[RG]O FACIEBAT 1576.(2) Good condition. The coloring recalls Bacchiacca, Correggio, and Parmigianino; the figures show the influence of Bartholomeus Spranger of Antwerp and Prague and of Michelangelo; the dependence of the composition on Michelangelo's Pieta in the cathedral at Florence is obvious. It may be the influence of Michelangelo and Spranger on both Lavinia and Spranger's one-time associate, Joseph Heintz, which explains the striking similarities between K1402 and Heintz's Mourning over Christ painted in 1608 and now in St. Paul in Lavanttal, Kärnten.(3) A version closely resembling K1402 is in the Rollins College Museum of Art, Winter Park, Florida; this also is signed and dated 1576.(4) Provenance: Julius Weitzner's, New York. Kress acquisition, 1945 –exhibited: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (847),1945-51; 'Pontormo to Greco: the Age of Mannerism,' John Herron Art Museum, Indianapolis, Ind., Feb. 14-Mar. 28, 1954, no. 35 of catalogue, as Lavinia Fontana.
References
(1) Catalogue by F. R. Shapley, 1961, no. 32, as Lavinia Fontana. (2) As the artist records here that she was an unmarried woman when she painted this, so she indicates that she is married by adding de Zappis to her maiden name on pictures painted a few years later. (3) Known until recently only in an engraving by Kilian, Heintz's painting was identified and reproduced by I. Schroth, in Studien zur Kunst des Oberrheins: Festschrift für Werner Noack, 1958, pp. 139 f., fig. 3. The signed and dated (1607) drawing in University College, London, for Heintz's painting is published by E. Haverkamp-Begemann, in Master Drawings, vol. V, 1967, pl. 38. (4) This was kindly called to my attention by B. B. Fredericksen.