Advanced Search 
Christ after the Flagellation
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (Spanish, 1617–1682)
after 1665
Medium/Technique
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
113 x 147.3 cm (44 1/2 x 58 in.)
Credit Line
Ernest Wadsworth Longfellow Fund
Accession Number53.1
CollectionsEurope
ClassificationsPaintings
Murillo was known for his intense renderings of religious martyrdom and ecstasy and for the sensuous beauty of his paint. Here, the artist has focused exclusively on Christ's suffering, choosing a moment after his tormentors have left the scene. Murillo's image depicts the human yet divine nature of Christ. The artist has placed him humbly upon the ground and painted his battered body so that his skin seems almost radiant, despite its wounds and sores. The angels display both adoration and compassion for the tortured Christ, the emotions the image was intended to arouse in its viewers.
ProvenanceLate 18th century, acquired by Noel Joseph Desenfans (b. 1744 - d. 1807), London; March 16-18, 1802, Desenfans sale, Skinner and Dyke, London, lot 181, sold for £ 39.18, probably to Jean-Baptiste-Pierre Le Brun (b. 1748 - d. 1813), Paris; August 10-13, 1803, Le Brun sale, Paris, lot 26, sold to Pierre-Joseph Lafontaine (b. 1758 - d. 1835), Paris, for 953 fr. 1850, Louis, Marquis de Montcalm (b. 1786 - d. 1862), Montpellier, France; March 24, 1850, Montcalm sale, Montpellier, lot 15, sold for fr. 4200, probably to Samuel M. Mawson (dealer; b. 1793 - d. 1862), London [see note 1]; May 19, 1855, Mawson sale, Christie's, London, lot 87, sold for £26.2 to Bryant [see note 2]. Between about 1855 and 1868, probably sold by Peter Norton (dealer; b. about 1782 - d. 1868), London, to John Charles Robinson (b. 1824 - d. 1913), London [see note 3]; 1868, sold by Robinson to Francis Cook, 1st Bart. (b. 1817 - d. 1901), Doughty House, Surrey [see note 4]; by inheritance to his son, Frederick Lucas Cook, 2nd Bart. (b. 1844 - d. 1920), Doughty House; by inheritance to his son, Herbert Frederick Cook, 3rd Bart. (b. 1868 - d. 1939), Doughty House; upon his death, entrusted to the trustees of the Cook Collection (stock no. 521); 1952, sold by the trustees of the Cook Collection to Jacques Seligmann and Co., New York (stock no. 8119); 1953, sold by Seligmann to the MFA for $23,800. (Accession Date: January 1, 1953)
NOTES:
[1] As "Sujet Mystique." Mawson, a picture dealer, agent, and restorer, had worked for the Marquis de Montcalm and purchased other paintings at the Montcalm sales.
[2] The catalogue states that the painting came "from the collection of the Prince de la Paix," presumably meaning Manuel Godoy (b. 1767 - d. 1851). The 1855 catalogue is the only source of this information, which remains unconfirmed.
[3] J. C. Robinson, Memoranda on Fifty Pictures (London, 1868), p. 48, cat. 31, noted that the painting had recently "found its way into the possession of ... the late Peter Norton."
[4] On the formation and dispersal of the Cook collection, see Elon Danziger, "The Cook Collection: Its Founder and Its Inheritors," Burlington Magazine 146, no. 1216 (July 2004): 444-458. The year of the sale to Seligmann is confirmed in a letter from John J. Cunningham to S. C. Kaines Smith of the Cook Collection (June 8, 1952), Archives of American Art, Jacques Seligmann and Co. Records, General Correspondence, Box 24, folder 12, Cook Collection.
NOTES:
[1] As "Sujet Mystique." Mawson, a picture dealer, agent, and restorer, had worked for the Marquis de Montcalm and purchased other paintings at the Montcalm sales.
[2] The catalogue states that the painting came "from the collection of the Prince de la Paix," presumably meaning Manuel Godoy (b. 1767 - d. 1851). The 1855 catalogue is the only source of this information, which remains unconfirmed.
[3] J. C. Robinson, Memoranda on Fifty Pictures (London, 1868), p. 48, cat. 31, noted that the painting had recently "found its way into the possession of ... the late Peter Norton."
[4] On the formation and dispersal of the Cook collection, see Elon Danziger, "The Cook Collection: Its Founder and Its Inheritors," Burlington Magazine 146, no. 1216 (July 2004): 444-458. The year of the sale to Seligmann is confirmed in a letter from John J. Cunningham to S. C. Kaines Smith of the Cook Collection (June 8, 1952), Archives of American Art, Jacques Seligmann and Co. Records, General Correspondence, Box 24, folder 12, Cook Collection.