The Risen Christ Adored by Saints and Angels (1566–68): Art, History and Details

The Risen Christ Adored by Saints and Angels (1566–68) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Giorgio Vasari (Italian, 1511–1574).

The work and its context

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

Florentine artist and author Giorgio Vasari venerated Michelangelo as the premier example of artistic genius and emulated the master in much of his work. He made this modello (a finished drawing for presentation to a patron) in preparation for a church altarpiece in Florence. It shows a finely muscled Christ appearing within a host of angels above a group of saints. Vasari’s Christ imitates the pose and body type of Michelangelo’s Christ in the Last Judgment fresco; he altered the pose, while suggesting his knowledge of the earlier composition.

Object facts

• Title: The Risen Christ Adored by Saints and Angels
• Date: 1566–68
• Creator attribution: Giorgio Vasari (Italian, 1511–1574)
• Culture: Italy
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: Black chalk, pen and brown ink, and extensive white heightening (wash and point of brush), with incising on paper prepared with a brown wash.
• Dimensions: Sheet: 41.9 x 26.5 cm (16 1/2 x 10 7/16 in.)
• Collection: DR - Italian
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1991.43

A detail from the museum

This highly finished presentation drawing, called a modello, was made by the artist to show to his patron the final plans for a painted altarpiece.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• John Herron Art Institute. Pontormo to Greco, The Age of Mannerism; a Loan Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings of the Century 1520-1620. February 14-March 28, 1954. Indianapolis, 1954.
• Monbeig-Goguel, Catherine and Walter Vitzthum, "Dessins Inedits de Giorgio Vasari," Revue de l'Art I/2 (1968): 89-93
• University of Notre Dame. The Age of Vasari; A Loan Exhibition Under the High Patronage of His Excellency, Egidio Ortona, the Ambassador of Italy to the United States [at] Art Gallery, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, February 22-March 31, 1970 [and] University Art Gallery, State University of New York at Binghamton, April 12-May 10, 1970. Notre Dame, Indiana, 1970.

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.