Currently not on view

Christ on the Cross

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, 1617–1682; born and died Seville, Spain

x1972-40

One of Spain’s most celebrated seventeenth-century artists, Murillo painted numerous altarpieces of the Crucifixion, varying the composition slightly by raising or lowering the head of the dying Christ. In this late expressive and atmospheric drawing, which may once have belonged to an album of the artist’s sketches, Murillo sets off the luminosity of Christ’s delicately delineated body against broadly brushed washes that suggest a turbulent sky. The skull at the foot of the cross signifies the biblical location of the crucifixion outside of Jerusalem, called Golgotha, or "place of the skull."

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Information

Object Number

x1972-40

Maker

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo

Medium

Pen and brown ink with brown wash, over black chalk

Dimensions

33.5 x 23.6 cm (13 3/16 x 9 5/16 in.)

Credit Line

Museum Purchase, Laura P. Hall Memorial Fund

Signatures

On former mount: Stamp of Sir Bruce S. Ingram (Lugt 1405a)

Type

drawings

Subject

figures (representations), religious art, halos (glories), Christ, bible stories, crucifixion

Materials

laid paper, wash, ink, black chalk

John Rushout, second Earl Northwick (1770-1859); George Rushout, third Earl of Northwick (1811-1859); Lady E. A. Rushout; E. G. Spencer-Churchill (Sotheby’s, Nov. 1-4, 1920, lot 318); Sir Bruce S. Ingram (1877-1963); H. Shickman Gallery, New York; sold by the former to Princeton University Art Museum.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/702301062

Sotheby Parke Bernet Inc. 1920. Portion of the famous collection of drawings by old masters, property of the late John, Lord Northwick. 1-4 November 1920, London., no. 318; opp. p. 57 (illus.)

5638 1920

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/11651052

Francisco J. Sanchez Canton, Dibujos españoles...material reunido por el Centro de estudios históricos, (Madrid: Hauser y Menet, 1930)., Vol. 5: pl. 418

5778 1930

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1534748

Exhibition Of Old Master Drawings At The H. Shickman Gallery, (New York: H. Shickman Gallery, 1968). , no. 60 (illus.)

5642 1968

https://www.jstor.org/stable/3774545

Jonathan Brown, "Notes on Princeton drawings 9: Bartolomé Estéban Murillo", Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 32, no. 2 (1973): p. 28-33., p. 28 (illus.); p. 29 (illus.); fig. 1

5639 1973

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/3255221

Gridley McKim Smith, Spanish baroque drawings in North American collections: [exhibition] October 19-November 24, 1974, (Lawrence, KS?: University of Kansas Museum of Art, 1974)., no. 30 (illus.)

5640 1974

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/2180918

Ebria Feinblatt, Old master drawings from American collections: exhibition, April 29-June 13, 1976, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; New York: distribution by Universe Books, 1976). , cat. no. 227 (illus.)

5500 1976

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/63299654

Jonathan Brown, Murillo & his drawings, (Princeton, NJ: Art Museum, Princeton University, 1976). , p. 136, no. 54

5641 1976

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/636533968

Jonathan Brown, "Drawings by Andalusian masters", Apotheca 3 (1983): p. 9-13., no. 161 and 163, pl. 32

5780 1983

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/607656597

Jonathan Brown, Susan Grace Galassi, Joanna Sheers Seidenstein and Pablo Pérez d'Ors, The Spanish manner: drawings from Ribera to Goya, (New York: Frick Collection; London: Scala Publishers, 2010). , p. 72-73; no. 19

5750 2010

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/825117283

Lisa A. Banner, Spanish Drawings in the Princeton University Art Museum, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2012)., p. 25, cat. no. 9; p. 26 (illus.)

2042 2012

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/711045537

Jonathan Brown, Murillo: virtuoso draftsman, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012)., p. 152-153, no. 53 (illus.)

1409 2012

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/794846266

Manuela Mena and Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Bartolome Esteban Murillo (1617-1682), (Santander, España: Fundación Botín, 2012)., p. 58-59, no. 37 (illus.)

1444 2012