Christ on the Cross

Description

El Greco (Spanish for "the Greek") was trained on his native island, Crete, as a painter of small-scale devotional images (icons). In the late 1560s he moved first to Venice, where he may have worked with Tintoretto (1518-1594), and then to Rome. Finally, he settled in Toledo, Spain. Tintoretto's influence is visible here in the colors and in the elongated figural proportions. The graphic depiction of blood, however, may reflect the Spanish interest in Christ's sufferings as a subject for meditation.

Provenance

Convent of the Salesas, Madrid, Spain (By 1815-1952); Tomas Harris, London, England (1952); (Rudolf Heinemann, New York, NY); (M. Knoedler & Co., Inc., New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) (-1952); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (1952-)

Christ on the Cross

El Greco

c. 1600–1610

Accession Number

1952.222

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

Framed: 221 x 144 x 10 cm (87 x 56 11/16 x 3 15/16 in.); Unframed: 193 x 116 cm (76 x 45 11/16 in.)

Classification

Painting

Museum

The Cleveland Museum of Art

Cleveland, United States

Credit Line

Gift of the Hanna Fund