Cecco del Caravaggio acquired by MET
September 5 2024
Picture: MET
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
I seemed to have missed news from earlier this year that the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York had acquired Cecco del Caravaggio's Christ on the Cross (spotted via @keithartnature). The painting was at TEFAF earlier in the spring with Galeria Caylus and has just been redisplayed in the MET's European galleries.
According to their catalogue note:
This remarkable object engages debates about the merits of painting versus sculpture by asking how painters might address the back of a well-known subject with as much attention as the front. Slack folds of skin animate bodily symmetry, and tensed hands communicate pain. On the reverse, blood trails through the nails that pierce the cross, and slivers of Christ’s hip and arms are visible. Cecco was a favorite model of Caravaggio before becoming a painter.
