Christ with the Cross

Certificates of authentication by Wilhelm Suida and Maurice H. Goldblatt were given to the purchaser when the present lot sold at Sheridan Art Galleries. This composition, in which Christ appears as Salvator Mundi, relates to the autograph version by Van Dyck in the Palazzo Rosso, Genoa. Generally accepted to be part of the so-called Böhler Series (see S. Barnes et al., Van Dyck: A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings, New Haven and London, 2003, pp. 70-71, no. I.51), the Palazzo Rosso version was undoubtedly based upon the now-lost Christ with the Cross from the so-called Apostolado Lerma, painted by his master, Sir Peter Paul Rubens, c. 1610-12 (the surviving 11 panels are in the Prado, Madrid). Rubens, in turn, was quite probably inspired by Michalengelo's Risen Christ in the church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, Rome. Another high quality 'workshop repetition' (Barnes, p. 71) of this composition was last recorded in the collection of Frank J. Mangano, East Liverpool, Ohio (E. Larsen, The Paintings of Anthony van Dyck, Freren, 1988, II, p. 92, no. 209).