The Exaltation of the True Cross
Sebastiano Ricci·1733
Historical Context
Ricci's Exaltation of the True Cross from 1733 depicts the seventh-century Emperor Heraclius returning the True Cross to Jerusalem after its capture by the Persians — a historical subject that combined Byzantine imperial history with the religious significance of the relic that Constantine's mother Helena had discovered in Jerusalem. Ricci painted this work when he was approaching eighty, demonstrating a sustained creative power unusual in extreme old age. The subject's Byzantine setting allowed him to deploy the orientalizing costumes and architectural settings that were standard resources of Venetian history painting, creating a spectacle of imperial and religious grandeur in his characteristic warm Venetian manner.
Technical Analysis
Ricci's oil on canvas employs a bright, luminous palette with fluid, confident brushwork and dynamic figure groupings that create a sense of ceremonial pageantry and movement.
Provenance
Count Grigory Stroganov [1829-1910], Rome.[1] (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Rome, 1927); purchased 1931 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[2] gift 1939 to NGA. [1] According to National Gallery of Art, _Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture_, Washington, D.C., 1941: 169. This painting and its pendant (NGA 1939.1.71) do not appear in catalogues of Stroganov sales or in those of the collection, which include only selected works. According to Antonio Muñoz, _La collezione Stroganoff_, Rome, 1910, Stroganov amassed his collection c. 1880-1890 and bought many things from the sale of Cardinal Immenraet. It has not been possible to locate a catalogue of the Immenraet collection. [2] The dates are given on the back of a photograph sent to the Frick Art Reference Library by Alessandro Contini Bonacossi at the NGA on 1 July 1969. The painting and its pendant are documented in the Kress collection in 1932 by Alfred M. Frankfurter, "Eighteenth Century Venice in a New York Collection", _The Fine Arts_ 19 (December 1932): 30; see also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2165.
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