Michel Coxcie Circle

Circle of MICHEL COXCIE (Mechelen, Belgium, 1499 - 1592).
"Christ carrying the Cross".
Oil on panel.
Measurements: 107 x 75 cm; 128 x 97 cm (frame).
The image of Christ carrying the Cross stands out, being this illuminated on a neutral and dark background. Jesus, embraced to the cross, looks at the ground with a suffering expression. The work follows the model of Michel Coxcie's painting "Jesus Carrying the Cross" in the collection of the Prado Museum in Madrid (P002641). It is an image of deep dramatism, enhanced by the wounds on Jesus' forehead caused by the crown of thorns, but above all by the expression of his face. In which the artist has portrayed in detail both the anatomical features and the tears. Thanks to a tight and fine brushstroke, the author has been able to enhance different elements that bring a great dramatic charge to the work, an example of which are the tears already mentioned and the quality of the workmanship in the hands of Jesus. It is because of this level of technical precision that this work can be inscribed in the pictorial circle of Michel Coxcie.

Michel Coxcie was a Flemish painter, known as the Raphael of the Low Countries for his great success in the Romanist style. He began his artistic training with Bernard van Orley in Brussels, and later traveled to Haarlem and Rome, where he lived around 1530-39, where he learned the technique of fresco mural painting, being the first Nordic master to practice it. In 1532 he decorated the chapel of Cardinal Enckenvoirt in the Roman church of Santa Maria dell'Anima, for which he achieved a certain reputation in Italy, and Giorgio Vasari acknowledged that Coxcie had successfully adopted the Italian style. Back in the Netherlands, Coxcie joined the guild of St. Luke in Mechelen in 1539. Shortly thereafter he moved to Brussels, and in 1546 he worked as chamber painter to Mary of Hungary, aunt of Philip II, filling the vacancy of the late Van Orley. He was a prolific author because apart from paintings, altarpieces, frescoes and portraits, he produced designs for engravings, stained glass and tapestries. His work, as well described by the Prado Museum is characterized by paying special attention to the representations of female figures, always elegant and well proportioned, while in the male bodies he accentuates the anatomy and the elaborate postures.