(Cremona 1536–1591)
The Mocking of Christ,
oil on canvas, 81 x 98 cm, unframed

Provenance:
Private European collection

We are grateful to Marco Tanzi for suggesting the attribution of the present painting and for his help in cataloguing this lot.

We are grateful to Vilmos Tátrai for independently suggesting the attribution for the present painting.

The present Mocking of Christ is, according Tanzi, one of the most significant works by the Cremonese artist, Vincenzo Campi, and it was executed during one of the most successful periods of the artist´s activity. It is a painting intended for private devotion, datable between the mid-1570s and the early 1580s. Significant comparisons can be made with the Christ Being Nailed to the Cross in the Certosa di Pavia of 1575, and with another canvas with the same subject conserved in the Prado, Madrid painted in 1577. The manner of execution and the colour palette are characteristic of Vincenzo Campi, as is the refined rendering of the different surfaces.

Although Vincenzo Campi is generally regarded as a painter of genre scenes, his work also reflects the style of painting prevalent in Lombardy in the last quarter of the sixteenth century, both in his naturalistic approach, influenced by his brother Antonio, and for his interest in perspectival illusion which can be observed in his frescoed vaults in San Paolo in Converso in Milan.