Christ carrying the Cross

Jacques Bellange’s dramatic rendering of Christ carrying the Cross, his largest and most ambitious print, owes much compositionally to Martin Schongauer’s late-Gothic masterpiece of the same subject, circa 1470-74 (see lot 1). The central figure of the stumbling figure of Christ, surrounded by a claustrophobic melee of jostling figures, with the Messiah’s head turned to gaze at the viewer, is drawn directly from Schongauer's engraving. This device of making the viewer witness of Christ’s suffering goes back to earlier medieval sources, which identify the Saviour with the Old Testament 'Man of Sorrows', a reference which Bellange makes explicit by including the Latin inscription in the lower margin: 'Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and by his stripes he was healed' (Isaiah 53:2).
Other correspondences between the two prints include the surge of the crowd from right to left, the placement of the two soldiers in the foreground on either side of the figure of Christ, the rear view of the horse and mounted soldier at the head of the procession, and the two thieves, side-by-side and half naked, though repositioned more centrally in Bellange’s version.
Despite these obvious parallels, the spirit of the two prints could not be more different. While Schongauer’s engraving is full of narrative detail reflecting a new humanistic realism in its lively characterisations of the faces and figures of the crowd, it retains the formal, devotional purity and pathos of the early Flemish masters. By contrast, Bellange’s Christ Carrying the Cross is charged with Mannerist theatricality and emotion. The welter of figures which crowd the figure of Christ are a flourish of exaggerated postures and extravagant garments, dramatically modelled with chiaroscuro effects. The figure of Christ is heavily robed, and his head and upper body appear faint and otherworldly, as if emanating light. This effect of radiance is reminiscent of Camillo Procaccini's Transfiguration of circa 1587-95, and was probably achieved by burnishing the plate to reduce the depth of the lines.
There are other innovations to the composition. The group of grieving women clustered at the lower left corner are not present in Schongauer’s version, and draw upon the account in Luke’s gospel: 'And there followed a great company of people, and of women, which also bewailed and lamented him' (Luke 23:26). The role of Simon of Cyrene in carrying the cross is elaborated and made much more prominent. His figure, partially obscured by the mounted priest in Schongauer's version, is repositioned immediately behind Christ, his muscular forearm straining to lift the stipe, and his gentle expression powerfully suggestive of an act of compassion rather than one of compulsion. With its dramatic contrasts of light and dark, spirituality and sensuality, devotion and farce, Bellange’s Christ carrying the Cross, is an astounding high point of Mannerist printmaking.
It is also a work of great rarity, especially in fine, early impressions. We have so far been able to trace six impressions in major public collections: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Metropolitan Museum, New York; Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Albertina, Vienna; and National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Within the last thirty years, only three later, weak impressions have been offered at auction.