Fragment from Christ Carrying the Cross: Mourning Virgin

c. 1500

Jean Hey (Master of Moulins; Netherlandish, active in France, c. 1480-c.1504)

Scientific imaging techniques, which can reveal information that lies below or has been removed from the surface layers of a painting, have determined that Saint John the Evangelist and the Mourning Virgin were once part of the same painting, Christ Carrying the Cross. Infrared reflectography revealed drawn strokes of Christ’s curling hair at the lower right of the Saint John panel. X-radiography shows that the top of the cross, still visible in the Saint John panel, occupied the lower left of Mourning Virgin before being scraped away and overpainted. The original work may have been repurposed to create multiple paintings of single, expressive devotional figures.

Status: On View, Gallery 202
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Jean Hey, (the Master of Moulins)
Title: Fragment from Christ Carrying the Cross: Mourning Virgin
Place: Netherlands (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1495–1505
Medium: Oil on panel
Dimensions: 27.5 × 19.9 cm (10 13/16 × 7 7/8 in.)
Credit Line: Lacy Withers Armour Fund, purchased with funds provided by the Old Masters Society, the Rhoades Foundation, Marilynn Alsdorf, Barbara Danielson in honor of James Wood, Mr. and Mrs. John W. Madigan, and John and Mary Gedo through the Old Masters Society, through prior gift of the George F. Harding, Mr. and Mrs. Morris I. Kaplan, Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester, and Max and Leola Epstein collections
Reference Number: 2004.244
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/183006/manifest.json

Ellis Waterhouse, “The Manchester Exhibition 1957,” Burlington Magazine 99 (1957), 415, fig. 21.
Martha Wolff, “Reconstitution d’une scène de la Passion peinte par le Maître de Moulins,” Revue de l’art, no. 147 (2005), 58–66, figs. 8–11.
“The Story of Art Retold: New Acquisitions at the Art Institute of Chicago,” Apollo (October 2008): 46 (color ill.).
Martha Wolff in Martha Wolff et al., Northern European and Spanish Paintings before 1600 in the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, 2008), 25-30, ill.
Martha Wolff et al., Kings, Queens, and Courtiers: Art in Early Renaissance France (New Haven and London, 2011), 131, ill.
Yann Quero, Le Maître de Moulins: Peintre de quatre reines de France (Toulous: Éditions Arkuiris, 2022), 403-21.
Bruno Amiot, “Le commanditaire du Saint Maurice de Jean Hey,” Revue de l’art, no. 219 (2023), 8-17, fig. 3.

London, Colnaghi, Paintings by Old Masters, 1952, cat. 6.
City of Manchester Art Gallery, Art Treasures Centenary: European Old
Masters, 1957, no. 20.
Manchester, Whitworth Art Gallery, Paintings from Sir Thomas Barlow’s Collection, 1968, cat. 6.
Hampstead, Kenwood House, on long-term loan with other pictures from the Barlow collection, 1997–July 2003.
Paris, Galeries nationales, Grand Palais, France 1500: entre Moyen Age et Renaissance, 2010–11, cat. 70c.
Art Institute of Chicago, Kings, Queens, and Courtiers: Art in Early Renaissance France, Feb. 26-May 30, 2011, cat. 62.

In Italy by the late 19th century. Giannino Marchig, by 1950 [photo of the painting at I Tatti, Fiesole, is marked “photo sent by Marchig Feb. 24 1950” with an annotation “Maitre de Moulins” in Bernard Berenson’s handwriting; e-mail from Fiorella Superbi, I Tatti, to Tiffany Johnston, July 24, 2003, copy in curatorial file.]; sold to Colnaghi, London, July 1, 1952 [email from Timothy Warner-Johnson, Colnaghi, to Martha Wolff, June 25, 2003, copy in curatorial file]; sold to Sir Thomas Barlow, Bart. (d. 1964), London, July 1, 1952 [email cited above]; by descent to Nicholas Barlow, London; sold to the Art Institute through Simon Dickinson Ltd., London, as agent, 2004.

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Fragment from Christ Carrying the Cross: Mourning Virgin

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

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