Giampietrino: Christ Carrying the Cross
Christs Carrying the Cross attributed to Giampietrino constitute the most direct point of comparison with The Painting. The London, Budapest, and Turin versions derive from the same scheme, itself connected to the Venice Drawing.
The question is therefore straightforward: to determine whether The Painting can be attributed to Giampietrino, or whether it corresponds to a distinct execution based on a shared source.
Homogeneous Versions
The London, Budapest, and Turin versions form a homogeneous group in their dimensions, framing, and construction. Superimpositions based on infrared images show an almost perfect coincidence in the figure of Christ, pointing to the use of a shared cartoon.
The larger-format versions, especially those in Vienna and Milan, belong to a second group.
See the dedicated page: Giampietrino’s homogeneous Versions
Giampietrino – The Painting: a Shared Cartoon
The National Gallery Technical Bulletin had already proposed that the same cartoon served for London and Budapest; the addition of Turin considerably strengthens this presumption.
In this logic, the cartoon is not an autonomous source, but a means of transmission: Venice Drawing → cartoon → painted versions. The Venice Drawing thus provides the model, while the cartoon ensures its faithful repetition within the Giampietrino group.
See the dedicated page: Giampietrino — The Painting: a shared cartoon
Comparison with The Painting
The superimpositions of the guiding lines show that The Painting shares with Giampietrino’s versions a very close structure, pointing to a shared cartoon or to an intermediate model derived from the Venice Drawing. This relationship explains why the hypothesis of Giampietrino could have been considered on the basis of composition alone.
Detailed analysis nevertheless reveals a different execution. Several recurring divergences distinguish The Painting from the versions attributed to Giampietrino: construction of the forearm, implantation of the hair, later addition of the halo, treatment of the joint of the cross, rendering of the wood grain, and radiographic contrast.
Despite the structural similarities, The Painting cannot therefore be attributed to Giampietrino.
See the dedicated page: Comparison between Giampietrino and The Painting.
Giampietrino, transmitter of Leonardo’s models
Art historical scholarship converges on one essential point: the Christs Carrying the Cross attributed to Giampietrino do not stem from an isolated invention, but from the diffusion of an earlier Leonardesque model. Starting from the Venice Drawing, several authors have envisaged the existence of a lost prototype — cartoon, lost painting, or another workshop relay — later transmitted within the Milanese milieu.
Giampietrino thus appears less as the inventor of the type than as one of its most constant transmitters.
Main sources
- Pedretti, L’Almanacco Italiano, 1979, pp. 236–242.
- Marani, Leonardo & Venice, 1992, pp. 344–345.
- Marani, entry Cristo Trasporta la Croce, Galleria Sabauda, Turin, 1998.
- Keith and Roy, National Gallery Technical Bulletin, no. 17, 1996.
- Clark, Leonardo da Vinci, Cambridge University Press, p. 106.
Collection sources
- Metropolitan Museum of Art.
- Galleria Borghese.
- Chazen Museum of Art.