Christ on the Cross

Alternate TitleLe Christ sur la croix

Alternate TitleCrucifixion

Alternate TitleLe Christ mort en croix

Artist Philippe de Champaigne (French, 1602 - 1674)

Dateca. 1655

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 35 5/8 × 22 1/16 inches (90.5 × 56.03 cm)
Framed: 42 5/8 x 29 1/4 inches (108.27 x 74.3 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number70-1

SignedNone

InscribedInscribed verso (no longer visible due to relining): Voor myne beminde suster / Marie de Champaigne-Religieuse / Brussel[s?]

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

European Art

Terms

DescriptionCenter foreground, Christ, with head lowered, nailed to cross, against background of dark blue-black sky. Crenellated castle, right; aquaduct and pyramid, center; landscape with rocks, left background. English translation of Flemish and French inscription on back of original canvas: To My Beloved Sister / Marie de Champaigne- nun / Brussels.
Exhibition History

Exhibition History

France in the Golden Age: Seventeenth-Century French Paintings in American Collections, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, January 29-April 26, 1982; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, May 26-August 22, 1982; The Art Institute of Chicago, September 18-November 28, 1982, no. 17, as Christ on the Cross.

Gallery Label

This image of Christ crucified was painted after Philippe de Champaigne had fallen under the influence of Jansenism when his paralyzed daughter was cured by Jansenist nuns. For Jansenists, human beings were born depraved and marked by Original Sin, and salvation depended upon divine grace granted through prayer and confession. Their austere beliefs are reflected in this example, where Christ on the cross is starkly positioned against the landscape and sky. Isolated from human contact, the image of Christ inspires reflection and repentance. Although Champaigne was influenced early in his career by the Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, his later, Jansenist-inspired work recalls the austere devotional style of 15th-century Flemish painters.

Provenance

Given by the artist to his sister, Marie de Champaigne (1606-1665), Brussels, by December 11, 1665 [1];

Sale, Aquarelles et Tableaux Modernes, Dessins et Tableaux Anciens, Objets d’Art et d’Ameublement Principalement du XVIII^e Siècle, Sièges et Meubles des époques Régence - Louis XV - Louis XVI, Tapisseries Anciennes, Palais Galliera, Paris, October 22, 1968, lot 42, as attributed to Philippe de Champaigne, Le Christ sur la croix;

With Frederick Mont, Inc., New York, by May 15, 1969-1970 [2];

Purchased from Mont by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1970.

NOTES:

[1] According to an inscription on the verso of the original canvas, which was subsequently covered by relining, the artist gave the painting to his sister, Marie de Champaigne, a Beguine nun in Brussels. The inscription, which reads “Voor myne beminde suster / Marie de Champaigne-Religieuse / Brussel[s?],” was transcribed by Francis Moro, a painting restorer employed by Frederick Mont, Inc., at the time he lined the painting on June 5, 1969. See NAMA curatorial files.

[2] Letter from Frederick Mont, Inc., to NAMA on December 11, 1969, states the painting was purchased in Paris by “Fritz” (per Nancy Yeide, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., this was probably Frederick Mont, né Adolf Fritz Mondschein, Vienna, 1894-1994; letter to Meghan Gray, NAMA, December 3, 2012). A restoration record from Paul Moro, Inc., New York, indicates that the painting was owned by Mont when the painting was brought to Moro for restoration on May 15, 1969. See NAMA curatorial files.

Published References

Aquarelles et Tableaux Modernes; Dessins et Tableaux Anciens; Objets d'Art et d'Ameublement Principalement du XVIII^e Siècle; Sièges et Meubles des époques Régence - Louis XV - Louis XVI; Tapisseries Anciennes (Paris: Palais Galliera, 1968), unpaginated, (repro.), as attributed to Philippe de Champaigne, Le Christ sur la croix.

“La Chronique des Arts (Supplément à la “Gazette des Beaux-Arts”),” Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 77, no. 1225 (February 1971): 73, (repro.), as Crucifixion.

“Recent Accessions of American and Canadian Museums: July-September 1970,” The Art Quarterly 34, no. 1 (Spring 1971): 126, 131, (repro.), as Crucifixion.

Bernard Dorival, “Recherches sur les sujets sacrés et allégoriques gravés au XVII^e et au XVIII^e siècle d’après Philippe de Champaigne,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 80, nos. 1242-1243 (July-August 1972): 33.

Ralph T. Coe, “The Baroque and Rococo in France and Italy,” Apollo, 96, no. 130 (December 1972): 530-531, 533-534, (repro.) [repr. in Denys Sutton, ed., William Rockhill Nelson Gallery, Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City (London: Apollo Magazine, 1972), 62-63, 65-66, (repro.)], as Crucifixion.

Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 108, 128, (repro.), as Crucifixion.

Bernard Dorival, Philippe de Champaigne, 1602-1676: La vie, l’œuvre, et le catalogue raisonné de l’œuvre (Paris: Léonce Laget Libraire, 1976), no. 2044, pp. 1:25n15 (erroneously as no. 2043), 74, 77, 79, 81, 117, 137 (erroneously as no. 90), 138, 141-42, 150 (erroneously as no. 2043), 159 (erroneously as no. 2043), 171; 2:46 (erroneously as no. 2043), 385-86, 516, (repro.), as Le Christ Mort en Croix.

Pierre Rosenberg, France in the Golden Age: Seventeenth-Century French Paintings in American Collections, exh. cat. (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1982), 159, 235-36, 349, 378 (repro.), as Christ on the Cross.

Claudette Hould, “Lettre de Paris: La peinture française du 17^e siècle dans les collections américaines,” Vie des Arts 27, no. 107 (Summer 1982): 15, (repro.), as Le Christ en croix.

Tom L. Freudenheim, ed., American Museum Guides: Fine Arts; A Critical Handbook to the Finest Collections in the United States (New York: Collier, 1983), 112, as Crucifixion.

Anne-Marie Bonenfant-Feytmans, “Un tableau inconnu de Philippe de Champaigne. Proposition d’identification,” Bulletin (Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels) 34-37, no. 1-3 (1985-1988): 147, as Christ en croix.

Christopher Wright, The French Painters of the Seventeenth Century (Boston: Little, Brown, 1985), 154, as Christ on the Cross.

Myron Laskin, Jr. and Michael Pantazzi, eds., European and American Painting, Sculpture, and Decorative Arts, vol. 1, 1300-1800/Text (Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 1987), 69-70, 355.

Bernard Dorival, Jean-Baptiste de Champaigne (1631-1681): La vie, l’homme et l’art (Paris: Bernard Dorival, 1992), 9, as Christ en croix.

Christopher Wright, The World’s Master Paintings: From the Early Renaissance to the Present Day (London: Routledge, 1992), 1:233, as Crucifixion, and 2:122.

Alfred Cohen, Ronald Cohen, and W. J. Van der Watering, Trafalgar Galleries XII (London: Trafalgar Fine Art Publications, [1993]), 34, 35n1, (repro.).

Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 170, (repro.), as Christ on the Cross.

Ronald Cohen and Alfred Cohen, Trafalgar Galleries at Maastricht, exh. cat. (London: Trafalgar Fine Art Publications, 1999), 22-23, (repro.).

J. Bradley Chance and Milton P. Horne, Rereading the Bible: An Introduction to the Biblical Story (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000), 323, (repro.), as Christ on the Cross.

Gilles Chomer, Peintures françaises avant 1815: La collection du Musée de Grenoble (Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 2000), 64, as Christ mort sur la croix.

Emmanuel Coquery and Anne Piéjus, eds., Figures de la Passion, exh. cat. (Paris: musée de la musique, 2001), 131n6.

Lorenzo Pericolo, Philippe de Champaigne: “Philippe, homme sage et vertueux:” Essai sur l'art et l'œuvre de Philippe de Champaigne (1602-1674) (Tournai, Belgium: La Renaissance du Livre, 2002), 311n20, as Christ en croix.

Lorenzo Pericolo, “Une ‘Crucifixion’ inédite de Philippe de Champaigne,” Paragone 56, no. 59 (January 2005): 77n4.

Alain Tapié and Nicolas Sainte Fare Garnot, Philippe de Champaigne (1602-1674): Entre politique et dévotion, exh. cat. (Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 2007), 244-45, (repro.), as Le Christ mort sur la Croix.

Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 78, (repro.), as Christ on the Cross.

Rima M. Girnius, “Philippe de Champaigne, Christ on the Cross, ca. 1655,” catalogue entry in French Paintings and Pastels, 1600–1945: The Collections of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, ed. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan (Kansas City: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2022), https://doi.org/10.37764/78973.5.204.5407.

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