VITTORE CARPACCIO

(Venice, ca. 1465-70 – 1525/26)

Christ as Salvator Mundi

Oil on panel

14 ¾ x 12 ½ inches (28.5 x 24 cm)

Provenance:   

Private Collection, Venice; by whom consigned to:

Pandolfini, Florence, 15 2013, lot 10 (Sold with a Certificate of Free Circulation from the Italian State), as Workshop of Vittore Carpaccio.

Exhibited: 

“Vittore Carpaccio: Master Storyteller of Renaissance Venice,” National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, 20 November 2022 – 12 February 2023. 

“Vittore Carpaccio: Dipinti e Disegni,” Palazzo Ducale, Venice, 18 March – 18 June 2023.

Literature:

Johannes Gebhart and Frank Zöllner, “Paragone: Leonardo in Comparison,” in Paragone: Leonardo in Comparison, ed. Johannes Gebhardt and Frank Zöllner, Petersberg, 2021, p. 14, fig. 3. 

Frank Zöllner, “Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, its Pictorial Tradition and its Context as a Devotional Image,” Artibus et Hitstoriae, no. 83 (2021), pp. 64-65, fig. 13.

Peter Humfrey, in Vittore Carpaccio: Master Storyteller of Renaissance Venice, exh. cat., Washington 2022, cat. no. 48, pp. 222-223; idem., in Vittore Carpaccio: Dipinti e Disegni, exh. cat., Venice, 2023, cat. no. 48, pp. 222-223.

This precious panel is a notable addition to the work of Vittore Carpaccio, representing a hitherto unknown treatment of the theme of Christ as Salvator Mundi, which Carpaccio treated several times in his career. By its intimate scale our painting was clearly intended for private devotional purposes. As a work in near perfect condition, it is a remarkable survivor from the Venetian Renaissance. While Carpaccio is justly celebrated for his large narrative canvases, traditional religious commissions occupied a large part of his career. In the present work, the artist has conceived of Christ following the Byzantine tradition of showing him frontally with one hand blessing and the other holding an orb representing the world. But rather than placing him against a flat gold-ground background, Carpaccio paints a brilliant cloud-filled sky to frame Christ. Together with his sensitive and sympathetic treatment of the facial features, this Christ is accessible to the viewer—a figure seen in heaven, but a heaven that one can see and experience every day.

Carpaccio’s authorship has been confirmed by Dr. Peter Humfrey and Dr. Mauro Lucco, who has authored a catalogue entry on the painting (available upon request), in which he dates the panel to 1507–1508, noting its resemblance to the similar depiction of Christ in the Dormition of the Virgin of 1508 (Fig. 1). Dr. Humfrey considers that dating, or one slightly earlier, appropriate, noting the less linear and softer modelling of drapery compared to that in Carpaccio’s earlier treatment of the theme of the 1490s. In his entry for the painting in the recent monographic exhibition on the artist, Humfrey has pointed out that the inventory of Palma Vecchio’s studio in 1528 records several heads of Christ that formed part of the painter’s stock, available for general purchase, rather than works painted on commission. He suggests a similar possible scenario for our painting—that it may have been painted by Carpaccio to meet the high demand for a subject of great popularity in Venice during this period, rather than as a specific commission.