Restored in 1994 with funding from the Young Friends of Save Venice.

In light of its size, shape, and use of a canvas support, Alvise Vivarini’s Christ Carrying the Cross is likely to have been used as a devotional banner carried in religious processions. In the painting Christ bears his cross alone through a sparse landscape with low mountains in the distance. The tree stump to the right of Christ alludes to the tree from which the cross was cut and symbolizes the savior’s truncated life. The walled citadel in the background to the left seems to recall the fortified medieval towns of the Veneto. Considering the probable function of the work, the full-length, monumental representation of Christ, who glances backward over his shoulder, would have appeared to lead the procession that followed behind the standard bearer, heightening the devotional aspect of participation in such an event.

Alvise was the last great painter from the workshop of the Vivarini family, which had included his father Antonio and uncle Bartolomeo. The Vivarini workshop specialized in the production of polyptychs and, after that of the Bellini family, was the most important in fifteenth-century Venice.

The work was restored by conservators Walter and Valentina Piovan, with the guidance of project director Sandro Sponza of the Superintendency of Fine Arts of Venice.

For select projects, conservation dossiers in Italian containing limited textual and photographic documentation may be available for consultation by appointment at the Venice office of Save Venice and the Rosand Library & Study Center. For inquiries, please contact us at venice@savevenice.org.

Alvise Vivarini (1445/46–1505)
Christ Carrying the Cross
c. 1474, tempera on canvas
169 x 148 cm

Steer, John. Alvise Vivarini: His Art and Influence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.