French school of the 16th century

French school of the 16th century.
"Christ crucified".
Polychrome lead sculpture.
Wooden cross with faults. Remains of polychrome.
Measurements: 52 x 25 x 8 cm (sculpture); 77 x 34 x 3 cm (cross).

The crucified Christs made in lead are a very particular typology within the devotional sculpture, especially common between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. Unlike the large wood carvings or the refined bronzes, lead offered a malleability and economy that allowed a very specific production. The one we are now bidding for is influenced by the late Gothic, close to the Renaissance. While in the Romanesque we saw a triumphant Christ (impassive to pain) and in the Gothic a suffering and angular Christ, the Renaissance introduces humanism and anatomical perfection.

The representation of the crucifixion has undergone an evolution parallel to the liturgical and theological variations of the Catholic doctrine in which we want to point out three milestones: at the beginning the paleochristian art omitted the representation of the human figure of Christ and the crucifixion was represented by means of the "Agnus Dei", the mystical lamb carrying the cross of martyrdom. Until the eleventh century Christ is represented crucified but alive and triumphant, with his eyes open, according to the Byzantine rite that does not consider the possibility of the existence of the corpse of Christ. Later, under the theological consideration that the death of the Savior is not due to an organic process but to an act of divine will, Christ is represented, as in our work, already dead with his eyes closed and his head fallen on the right shoulder, showing the sufferings of the passion, provoking commiseration, as referred to in Psalm 22 when he says: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (...) a mob of the wicked is near me: they have pierced my hands and my feet (...) they have divided my garments and cast lots for my tunic".