Finch & Co

Medium / Material

Gilt Bronze

Description

A Small French Solid Cast Bronze of Christ on the Cross Wearing the Crown of Thorns
Traces of original gilding
17th Century

Size: 10cm high, 9.5cm wide – 4 ins high, 3¾ ins wide

Provenance

Provenance: Ex English Private collection

Literature

Western Art is unique in its preoccupation with the naked body and in particular, the naked male body, and despite Christianity’s ambivalent view of the body, the pagan Greek invention of the classical ‘ideal’ nude profoundly affected Christian imagery. Divested of his garments in order to evoke pity for his abject human nakedness, Christ here is portrayed as a body humiliated and vulnerable to pain, nailed to the cross.