The Taking of Christ (Caravaggio)

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The Taking of Christ
Italian: Cattura di Cristo nell' orto
ArtistCaravaggio
Yearc. 1602
Mediumoil on canvas
Dimensions133.5 cm × 169.5 cm (52.6 in × 66.7 in)
LocationNational Gallery of Ireland
On loan from the Society of Jesus, Leeson Street., Dublin

The Taking of Christ (Italian: Presa di Cristo nell'orto or Cattura di Cristo) is a painting, of the arrest of Jesus, by the Italian Baroque master Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. Originally commissioned by the Roman nobleman Ciriaco Mattei in 1602, it is housed in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin.

Description

There are seven figures in the painting: from left to right they are

St Peter, who would first betray Jesus by denying him, and then go on to bring the light of Christ to the world). At the far left, a man (St John) is fleeing; his arms are raised, his mouth is open in a gasp, and his cloak is flying and being snatched back by a soldier. The flight of the terrified John contrasts with the entrance of the artist; scholars claim that Caravaggio is making the point that even a sinner one thousand years after the resurrection has a better understanding of Christ than does his friend.[1][a]

Two of the more puzzling details of the painting are, one, the fact that the heads of Jesus and St. John seem to visually meld together in the upper left corner, and, two, the fact of the prominent presence, in the very centre of the canvas and in the foremost plane of the picture, of the arresting officer's highly polished, metal-clad arm. Regarding the detail of the polished metal pauldron of the soldier in the centre of the picture, Franco Mormando suggests that it was meant by the artist to serve as a mirror, a mirror of self-reflection and examination of conscience (such as in Caravaggio's Martha and Mary Magdalene in Detroit): as do many spiritual writers and preachers of the period, the artist may be 'inviting his viewers to see themselves reflected in the behaviour of Judas' through their own daily acts of betrayal of Jesus, that is, through their sin.[2]

Sources

The central group, composed of Jesus, Judas and the soldier with an outstretched hand, resembles a 1509 woodcut by Albrecht Dürer from his Small Passion series.[3]

Woodcut by Albrecht Dürer (detail)

Loss and rediscovery

By the late 18th century, the painting was thought to have disappeared, and its whereabouts remained unknown for about 200 years. In 1990, Caravaggio's lost masterpiece was recognized in the residence of the

Society of Jesus in Dublin, Ireland. The rediscovery was published in November 1993.[4]

The painting had been hanging in the Dublin Jesuits’ dining room since the early 1930s but had long been considered a copy of the lost original by

shooting of her husband, Capt. Percival Lea-Wilson, a District Inspector in the Royal Irish Constabulary in Gorey, County Wexford, by the Irish Republican Army on 15 June 1920.[6][7]

The Taking of Christ remained in the Dublin Jesuits' possession for about 60 years, until it was spotted and recognised, in the early 1990s, by Sergio Benedetti, Senior Conservator of the National Gallery of Ireland, who had been asked by Father Noel Barber, S.J., to examine a number of paintings in the Leeson Street Jesuit Community (of which Barber was superior) for the purposes of restoration.[8][9] As layers of dirt and discoloured varnish were removed, the high technical quality of the painting was revealed, and it was tentatively identified as Caravaggio's lost painting. Much of the credit for verifying the authenticity of this painting belongs to Francesca Cappelletti and Laura Testa, two graduate students at the University of Rome.[10] During a long period of research, they found the first recorded mention of The Taking of Christ, in an ancient and decaying account book documenting the original commission and payments to Caravaggio, in the archives of the Mattei family, kept in the cellar of a palazzo in the small town of Recanati.

The painting is on indefinite loan to the National Gallery of Ireland from the Jesuit Community, Leeson Street, Dublin, who acknowledge the kind generosity of Dr Marie Lea-Wilson. It was displayed in the United States as the centrepiece of a 1999 exhibition entitled "Saints and Sinners," organized by Franco Mormando at the McMullen Museum of Art, at Boston College,[11] and at the 2006 "Rembrandt / Caravaggio" exhibition in the van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.[12] In 2010 it was displayed from February to June at the Scuderie del Quirinale, Rome, for the 400th anniversary of Caravaggio's death.[13] In 2016 it was displayed in the National Gallery, London.[14]

Damaged copy in Odesa, Ukraine

Copies

There are at least 12 known copies of this painting. These include ones in the Metropolitan Cathedral of Sucre Museum in Bolivia and St Bede's College, Manchester, and one formerly in the Walter P. Chrysler Jr. Collection.[15]

The Odesa Museum of Western and Eastern Art (Ukraine) has a copy of The Taking of Christ believed to be an original copy made by Caravaggio himself. The painting was stolen from the museum in 2008 and found in Germany.[16] After restoration and research Ukrainian and Russian scientists claimed it is a copy, made by Giovanni di Attili for Asdrubale Mattei, brother of the original's owner – Ciriaco Mattei. The account books of Asdrubale record a payment of 12 scudi in 1626 for this work.

Sannini version: putative original

A version owned by the Sannini family of Florence came to the attention of

ArtWatch was not convinced.[20][21]

Cultural references

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ Apesos gives a close reading of the iconography of this canvas as seen through the lens of contemporary preachers and other theological primary sources of Caravaggio's day.
  2. ^ There is no evidence to suggest 1934.

References

Sources

  • ISBN 0-903162-68-7
    .
  • ISBN 0-375-50801-5
    .
  • Mormando Franco, ed. (1999). Saints and Sinners: Caravaggio and the Baroque Image. McMullen Museum of Art.
    ISBN 1-892850-00-1
    .
  • Benedetti, Sergio (November 1993). "Caravaggio's 'Taking of Christ', a Masterpiece Rediscovered". The Burlington Magazine. 135 (1088): 731–741.
    JSTOR 885816
    .
  • Müller, Jürgen. "Der Judaskuss der Malerei: Caravaggios Dubliner Gefangennahme Christi in neuer Deutung" Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 85, no. 1 (2022): 57-81. [1]

Citations

  1. ^ Apesos, Anthony (Winter 2010). "The Painter as Evangelist in Caravaggio's Taking of Christ". Aurora. XI.
  2. ^ Franco Mormando, 'Just as your lips approach the lips of your brothers: Judas Iscariot and the Kiss of Betrayal' in F. Mormando, ed., Saints and Sinners: Caravaggio and the Baroque Image (Chicago: Distrib. by University of Chicago Press, 1999), p. 183. Mormando's essay gives an overview of contemporary commentary on the scene of the betrayal of Judas in the most popular spiritual literature available to Caravaggio as he prepared to depict this scene.
  3. JSTOR 886401
    .
  4. ^ Benedetti (November 1993)
  5. ISBN 0-375-75986-7
    .
  6. ^ Humphrys, Mark. "Dr. Nora Stack". HumphrysFamilyTree.com. Retrieved 6 February 2009.
  7. ^ Lowe, W. J. (2002). "The war against the R.I.C., 1919–21". Éire-Ireland (Fall/Winter): footnote 71.
  8. ^ Walsh, Elaine. "A Picture Of Mystery". irishletter.com. For Fr. Barber's own first-person account of the events that led up to the rediscovery, see his essay, "The Murder Behind the Discovery," in Franco Mormando, ed., Saints and Sinners: Caravaggio and the Baroque Image, exhibition catalogue (Chestnut Hill, MA: McMullen Museum of Boston College, 1999), pp. 11-13.
  9. ISBN 978-1-892850-00-3
    . Retrieved 5 March 2021.
  10. ^ "On the Trail of a Missing Caravaggio" by Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times (2 December 2005)
  11. ^ "Saints and Sinners" Archived 2016-10-03 at the Wayback Machine, exhibition information.
  12. ^ Exhibition information Archived 2010-01-24 at the Wayback Machine
  13. ^ "Caravaggio, pittore superstar", Edoardo Sassi, Corriere della Sera (18 February 2010) (in Italian)
  14. ^ "Beyond Caravaggio | Press releases | National Gallery, London".
  15. ^ Benedetti (November 1993) p.731 fn.6
  16. ISBN 9781493924714
    . Retrieved 30 November 2016.
  17. ^ Cunningham, Grainne (20 February 2004). "And the real Caravaggio masterpiece is . . . um, both of them". Irish Independent. Retrieved 30 November 2016.
  18. ^ Reynolds, Nigel; Johnston, Bruce (20 February 2004). "The real Caravaggio is . . . both of them". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 30 November 2016.
  19. ^ Conrad, Peter (22 February 2004). "Who really painted The Taking of Christ? In search of the real Caravaggio". The Observer. Retrieved 30 November 2016.
  20. ^ Harr 2006, "Epilogue"
  21. ^ Daley, Michael (30 September 2014). "Art's Toxic Assets and a Crisis of Connoisseurship Artwatch". ArtWatch UK. Retrieved 30 November 2016.

External links

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