The Crucifixion

CC0 Public Domain Designation

1627

Francisco de Zurbarán (Spanish, 1598–1664)

In 1626 the Dominican monastery of San Pablo el Real in Seville, Spain, commissioned the young Francisco de Zurbarán to execute a cycle of paintings including The Cruciﬁxion. This work was installed in a dimly lit space in the monastery, visible to visitors through a grill. Early commentators remarked on its powerful illusion of three-dimensionality, as though it was a sculpture rather than a painting. Set against a dark, empty background, the dramatically illuminated ﬁgure of Christ dying on the cross appears outside of time and place, both idealized in its quiet, graceful beauty and humanized by the individualized face and anatomical detail. The artist’s name and the date of the painting are inscribed on the curled scrap of paper at the base of the cross.

By depicting the cruciﬁxion in austere isolation rather than as an event occurring outside amid a crowd of onlookers, Zurbarán was conforming to the aesthetic dictates of the Counter-Reformation. Beginning in the mid-sixteenth century, the Roman Catholic Church clariﬁed and reaffirmed its doctrine and practices in an eff ort to combat the impact of the Protestant Reformation. This eff ort recognized the educational and inspirational value of visual images and required artists to work in a style that favored clarity and dramatic fervor.

Status: On View, Gallery 211
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Francisco de Zurbarán
Title: The Crucifixion
Place: Spain (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.: 1627
Medium: Oil on canvas
Inscriptions: Signed and dated bottom center: Franco Dezur / Fa 1627 (on a scrap of paper at the foot of the cross)
Dimensions: 290.3 × 165.5 cm (114 5/16 × 65 3/16 in.); Framed: 339.1 × 212.1 × 14 cm (133 3/8 × 83 1/2 × 5 1/2 in.)
Credit Line: Robert A. Waller Memorial Fund
Reference Number: 1954.15
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/80084/manifest.json

Antonio Palomino de Castro y Velasco, El Museo pictórico y escala óptica, vol. 3, El Parnaso Español pintoresco laureado (Madrid, 1724), p. 355; translated by Nina Ayala Mallory as Lives of the Eminent Spanish Painters and Sculptors (Cambridge, 1987), pp.184, 185 n. 8.
Antonio Ponz, Viaje de España, vol. 9 (Madrid, 1786), pp. 89-90; reprinted Madrid, 1947, p. 785.
D. Juan Agustín Ceán Bermúdez, Diccionario Historico de los más Ilustres Profesores de las Bellas Artes en España (Madrid, 1800), p. 50.
William Stirling[-Maxwell], Annals of the Artists of Spain, vol. 2 (London, 1848), p. 772; 2nd ed., London, 1891, p. 923.
José Gestoso Pérez, Ensayo de un diccionario de los artífices que florecieron en Sevilla desde el siglo XIII al XVIII inclusive, vol. 2 (Seville, 1900), pp. 124-125.
M. Gómez Imaz, Inventario de los cuadros sustraídos por el Gobierno insturso en Sevilla (año 1810), 2nd ed. (Seville, 1917), p. 141, no. 224.
José Cascales y Muñoz, Francisco de Zurbarán: su época, su vida y sus obras (Madrid, 1911), p. 36; translated by Nellie Seelye Evans, New York, 1918, p. 17.
Hugo Kehrer, Francisco de Zurbarán (Munich, 1918), pp. 18, 36-37.
Juan de M. Corriazo, “Correspondencia de don Antonio Ponz con el Conde del Aguila,” Archivo Español de Arte y Arqueologia 5 (1929), p. 176.
Martin S. Soria, “Francisco de Zurbarán: A Study of His Style,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 6 ser., 25 (1944), p. 40.
Paul Guinard, “Los Conjuntos dispersos o desaparecidos de Zurbarán: Anotaciones a Ceán Bermúdez (II)” Archivo espanol de arte 20 (1947), pp. 193-94, 198-99.
José Milicua, “El Crucifijo de San Pablo, de Zurbarán,” Archivo Espanol de Arte 26 (1953), pp. 177-186, pls. 1-4.
“Found and Lost,” Time Magazine (4 April 1955), p. 83, ill.
Martin S. Soria, “Zurbarán’s Crucifixion,” The Art Institute of Chicago Quarterly 49, 3 (1955), pp. 48-49, ill.
Martin S. Soria, The Paintings of Zurbarán, 2nd rev. ed. (London, 1955), pp. 21, 30, 189, no. 225, pls. 20, 21.
“How Chicago Got Painting Lost to World for Century,” Chicago Tribune (23 March 1955), p. 1, 3, ill.
“Chicago: Una Crocifissione di Zurbarán all’Art Institute,” Emporium 122 (1955), pp. 88, ill. p. 89.
George Kubler and Martin Soria, Art and Architecture in Spain and Portugal and their American Dominions 1500-1800 (Harmondsworth, 1959), p. 244.
Paul Guinard, Zurbarán et les peintres espagnols de la vie monastique (Paris, 1960), pp. 141-42, 186-87, 219, no. 90, pl. 8.
Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Chicago, 1961), p. 489, ill. p. 104.
Ramón Torres Martín. Zurbarán: El Pintor gótico del siglo XVII (Seville, 1963), pp. 88-90, 202, no. 28, fig. 24.
Kaspar H. Spinner, “Helldunkel und Zeitlichkeit: Caravaggio, Ribera, Zurbarán, G. de La Tour, Rembrandt,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 34 (1971), p. 175, fig. 3.
Mina Gregori and Tiziana Frati, L’opera completa di Zurbarán (Milan, 1973), p. 86, no. 23, pl. 1, fig. 23.
Jonathan Brown, Francisco de Zurbarán (New York, 1974), pp. 24, 66, pl. 4.
Julián Gállego and José Guidol, Zurbarán 1598-1664 (New York, 1977), pp. 16-17, 48, 68, 73-74, no. 8, fig. 12.
James N. Wood and Katharine C. Lee, Master Paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, 1988), p. 27, ill.
Jeannine Baticle, “Découvrir Zurbaran,” La Revue du Louvre et des Musées de France 37 (1987), p. 429.
Nina Ayala Mallory, “Notas criticas sobre la pintura de Zurbarán,” Goya no. 201 (1987), p. 157, fig. 2.
Jonathan Brown, “Patronage and Piety: Religious Imagery in the Art of Francisco de Zurbarán” in Zurbarán, exhib. cat., Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1987, pp. 3-4.
Yves Bottineau, “On the Critical Fortunes of Francisco de Zurbarán: Reflections and Inquiries” in Zurbarán, exhib. cat., Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1987, pp. 25-26.
Jeannine Baticle, “Francisco de Zurbarán: A Chronological Review” in Zurbarán, exhib. cat., Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1987, pp. 55.
Nina Ayala Mallory, “Museum News: Zurbarán,” Art Journal 47 (1988), p. 233.
Enriqueta Harris, Review of New York/Paris 1987/88 in Burlington Magazine 130 (1988), pp. 252-253.
Philippe Piquet, “Francisco de Zurbarán, une oeuvre paradoxale,” L’Oeil, no. 390-391 (1988), p. 36.
Enrique Valdivieso, “Nouvelles perspectives sur Zurbarán: Les découvertes de l’exposition,” La Revue du Louvre et des Musées de France 39 (1989), p. 19, fig. 2.
Dictionnaire de la peinture espagnole et portugaise du Moyen Âge à nos jours, ed. Jean-Philippe Breuille (Paris, 1989), p. 307.
Richard Mühlberger, The Bible in Art: The New Testament (New York, 1990), p. 126, ill.
Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez, Pintura barroca en España (1600-1750) (Madrid, 1992), p. 189 (ill.).
Odile Delenda, Velázquez: peintre religieux (Paris, 1993), p. 108, fig. 36.
María Luisa Caturla, Francisco de Zurbarán, translated and revised by Odile Delenda (Paris, 1994), pp. 48, ill., 49, 278.
Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez, La Pittura spagnola, vol. 2 (Milan, 1995), pp. 327, 331, fig. 389.
Victor I. Stoichita, Visionary Experience in the Golden Age of Spanish Art (London, 1995), pp. 70-74, 119, 204, fig. 14.
Claudie Ressort, “Francisco de Zurbarán” in The Dictionary of Art, vol. 33 (London, 1996), p. 729, fig. 1.
Sotheby’s, Madrid, Pintura Antigua y de los siglos XIX y XX, 23 April, 1996, under no. 7.
Liudmila Kagané, Diego Velázquez (St. Petersburg, 1996), pp. 68, 70, ill.
Janis Tomlinson, From El Greco to Goya: Painting in Spain 1561-1828 (New York, 1997), pp. 69-70, fig. 42.
Odile Delenda and Luis Garraín Villa, “Zurbarán Sculpteur: aspects inédits de sa carrière et de sa biographie,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 6th ser., 131 (1998), pp. 125, 134, fig. 1, cover ill.
Jonathan Brown, Painting in Spain 1500-1700 (New Haven and London, 1998), p. 133, fig. 174.
Yves Bottineau, Vélasquez (Paris, 1998), pp. 120, 123, fig. 102.
Odile Delenda, “Precisiones sobre la vida y obra de Francisco de Zurbarán” in Zurbarán IV Centenario, exhib. cat., Museo de Bellas Artes de Sevilla, 1998, p. 16, fig. 10.
José Fernández López, “Pintura y contrarreforma en la Sevilla de Zurbarán” in Zurbarán IV Centenario, exhib. cat., Museo de Bellas Artes de Sevilla, 1998, pp. 38-39, fig. 34.
Odile Delenda, José Milicua et al., Zurbarán al Museu Nacional d’art de Catalunya, exhib. cat. Museu Nacional d’art de Catalunya, Barcelona, 1998, pp. 31, 88-92, ill., under no. 5.
Arsenio Moreno, Zurbarán (Madrid, 1998), pp. 10-11, 50-51, ill.
Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez, “Zurbarán et Velázquez. Vies Parallèles et Divergentes,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 6th ser., 132 (1998), p.168, fig. 4.
Joël Cornette and Alain Mérot, Le XVIIe siècle. Histoire artistique de l’Europe, vol. 4, (Paris, 1999), pp. 195-96, ill.
Peter Cherry, “La formación de los pintores en los talleres sevillanos” in Zurbarán ante su centenario (1598-1998), ed. Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez (Valladolid, 1999), p. 59, pl. 29.
Odile Delinda, “Biografía ilustrada de Francisco de Zurbarán. Nuevos datos,” in Zurbarán ante su centenario (1598-1998), ed. Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez (Valladolid, 1999), pp. 80-81, pl. 1.
Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez, “Zurbarán, Cano y Velázquez,” in Zurbarán ante su centenario (1598-1998), ed. Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez (Valladolid, 1999), p. 105.
Peter Cherry, Arte y Naturaleza: El Bodegón Español en el Siglo de Oro (Aranjuez, 1999), pp. 250-51 (English translation, p. 128).
Peter Cherry, “Seville and elsewhere, Zurbarán,” Burlington Magazine 141 (1999), p. 130.
José María Palencia Cerezo, “La estela de Zurbarán en la pintura barroca cordobesa,” Goya, no. 275 (2000), p. 68.
Zurbarán. La obra final: 1650-1664, exhib. cat., Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, Bilbao, 2000, pp. 38-39, 41, 77-78, ill.
Enrique Valdivieso, Pintura Barroca Sevillana (Seville, 2003), p. 254, pl. 232.
Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez and Benito Navarrete Prieto, De Herrera a Velázquez. El primer naturalismo en Sevilla, exhib. cat., Focus Agengoa, Seville, 2006, pp. 256-8, ill., under no. 57.
John B. Ravenal, “Notes on Black,” in Carter Ratcliff, Donald Sultan: The Theater of the Object, New York, 2008. p. 25, ill.
Odile Delenda, Francisco de Zurbarán 1598-1664, vol. 1, Catálogo razonado y crítico (Madrid, 2009), pp. 37, 56, 96-98, fig. 1, 144, 298, 333, 370, no. 7, ill.; volume 2, Conjuntos y el obrador (Madrid, 2010), pp. 55-58, pl. 1.
Xavier Bray, “The Sacred Made Real: Spanish Painting and Sculpture 1600-1700” in The Sacred Made Real: Spanish Painting and Sculpture 1600-1700, exhib. cat., National Gallery, London, 2009, pp. 15,18, 32, 34, 40, figs. 1, 19, 22.
Alfonso Rodríguez G. de Ceballos, “The Art of Devotion: Seventeenth-century Spanish Painting and Sculpture in its Religious Context” in The Sacred Made Real: Spanish Painting and Sculpture 1600-1700, exhib. cat., National Gallery, London, 2009, p. 49.
Rosemarie Mulcahy, Review of London 2009/2010 in Burlington Magazine 152 (2010), pp. 50, 51.
Beat Wismer, Odile Delenda and Mar Borobia, Zurbarán: A New Perspective, exh. cat. (Madrid: Fundación Colección-Thyssen Bornemisza, 2015), 18 fig. 2, 38.
Karin Hellwig, “Theory and Practice: The Fine Arts in Seventeenth-Century Spain” in El Siglo de Oro: Die Ära Velázquez, exh. cat., Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Berlin, 2016), pp. 36-37, fig. 8.
Steven F. Ostrow, “Zurbarán’s Cartellini: Presence and the Paragone,” Art Bulletin 99 (2017), pp. 77-83, 93, 94, fig. 11.
James Rondeau, ed., Paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago: Highlights of the collection (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2025), 36 (ill.).

Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, The Art of the Edge: European Frames 1300 - 1900, October 17- December 17, 1986, no. 30.
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Zurbarán, 22 September - 13 December 1987, no. 2; Paris, Galeries National du Grand Palais, January 14 - April 11, 1988, no. 1.
London, National Gallery, The Sacred Made Real: Spanish Painting and Sculpture 1600-1700, October 21, 2009 - January 24, 2010, no. 25; traveled to Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, February 28 - May 31, 2010.

Painted for the sacristy of the Dominican monastery San Pablo el Real, Seville; placed on deposit at Palacio Real, Seville, on the order of Joseph Bonaparte, King of Spain, 1810 [see M. Gómez Imaz, 1917, p. 141, no. 224]; acquired by General Jean Toussaint Arrighi de Casanova, Duc de Padoue (died 1853) shortly thereafter [as recounted by his son to Father Stanislas Du Lac, S.J.; see letter from Father Du Lac to Father Paul Troussard dated 16 February 1901 and preserved at the Bibliothèque Sèvres, Paris, copy in file]; by descent to his son, Ernest Louis Hyacinthe Arrighi de Casanova, 2nd Duc de Padoue, given by him to Father Stanislas Du Lac S.J. (died 1909), rector of the Collège Saint Geneviève, Paris, 1876 [see letter cited above; Father Du Lac explained that he received the painting in thanks for his spiritual assistance to the duke’s wife]; probably taken by Father Du Lac to St. Mary’s College, Canterbury for the period between 1880 and 1890 and likely remained at Canterbury when St. Mary’s College was replaced by a Jesuit school for novitiates; it was apparently moved from Canterbury to Laval along with the Jesuit novices’ school in 1897 and was in Laval in 1901 [see letters from Jacqueline Diot and Father Du Lac in curatorial file]; transferred from Laval to the Jesuit seminary of Saint Louis at Jersey [see note with Du Lac letter]; transferred with the seminary to Chantilly in 1951 [see undated typewritten notes in curatorial file]. Dr. H. F. Fankhauser, Basel, 1952 [See Baticle in New York, 1988]; sold to the Art Institute, 1954.

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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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