Christ Holding a Chalice and Cross (recto); Resurrected Christ and Lamb of God (verso) (1666): Art, History and Details

Christ Holding a Chalice and Cross (recto); Resurrected Christ and Lamb of God (verso) (1666) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Alonso Cano (Spanish, 1601–1667).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

In this drawing, a triumphant Christ holds the cross signifying his resurrection while offering a chalice as a symbol of his blood and sacrifice. In the background, Saint John the Baptist points, identifying Christ as the Lamb (or sacrifice) of God. Alonso Cano was an artist in Baroque Spain who made works primarily in the service of the Catholic Church and Spanish monarchs. Though no related painting is known, the composition is appropriate for an altarpiece, meant as a visual aid to clarify the meaning of the Catholic Mass.

Object facts

• Title: Christ Holding a Chalice and Cross (recto); Resurrected Christ and Lamb of God (verso)
• Date: 1666
• Creator attribution: Alonso Cano (Spanish, 1601–1667)
• Culture: Spain
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: pen and brown ink and brush and brown wash
• Dimensions: Sheet: 19 x 13.3 cm (7 1/2 x 5 1/4 in.)
• Collection: DR - Spanish
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1982.121

A detail from the museum

The disk rising above the chalice in Christ's hand represents the eucharistic wafer. Designs were impressed onto these disks of unleavened bread using special wafer irons, some of which have made it into museum collections.

Collection credit

Dudley P. Allen Fund

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.