Carrying of the Cross, from Passion of Christ
1575/1600
Medium
Engraving in black on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
Plate: 16.5 × 11.5 cm (6 1/2 × 4 9/16 in.); Sheet: 16.8 × 12.8 cm (6 5/8 × 5 1/16 in.)
Classification
engraving
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
93099
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Christ sinks, exhausted, to the ground during the forced march to his execution on Calvary. Saint Veronica kneels at the ready with a cloth to wipe his face during this brief respite from carrying his own cross. The resulting contact relic was said to create a kind of print with an impression of Christ’s countenance (also appearing in the title page of the series) that possessed healing powers.
Art Historical Context
Jan Sadeler I created this intimate engraving, *Carrying of the Cross*, between 1575 and 1600 as part of his *Passion of Christ* series. The Flemish printmaker specialized in religious subjects, translating dramatic biblical narratives into finely detailed images that could reach wide audiences beyond church walls. The scene captures a pivotal moment from Christ’s final journey, rendered with the precise linework characteristic of engraving on laid paper. Engravings like this played a vital role during the late Renaissance and Counter-Reformation. They allowed complex religious stories to circulate affordably across Europe, reinforcing faith and devotion in an era of religious upheaval. Sadeler’s small plate—measuring just over six inches—demonstrates the medium’s power to convey emotional intensity through delicate cross-hatching and subtle tonal contrasts on the ivory-toned sheet. Housed in the Art Institute of Chicago’s Prints and Drawings department, this work highlights how printmaking democratized art in the sixteenth century. Viewers today can appreciate both its devotional purpose and the technical mastery required to translate a painterly composition into a reproducible black-and-white image.
About the Artist
Jan Sadeler, I · 1550–1600
Jan Sadeler I (1550–1600) was born in Brussels and became the most prominent member of the largest and most successful dynasty of Flemish printmakers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Sadeler family — which included Jan's brothers Aegidius and Raphael — produced an extraordinary volume of engravings that circulated across Catholic Europe, disseminating images of religious subjects, p...