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Provenance: Acquired by the father of the present owner via Ivo Curcin, circa 1960
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Literature: Notre Dame University Archive, no: GMST 10/23 Title : Christ on the Cross - Wood c1912
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Notes: A photograph of Christ on the Cross is held in the collection of Ivan Mestrovic Papers at Notre Dame University, Indiana. The sculptor taught at the university from 1955 until his death in 1962, and the archive was donated by his son Mâte Mestrovic. A note on the reverse of the photograph states that the relief was probably carved from Slavonic oak and probably carved circa 1912. It also notes that the piece was acquired by the father of the present owner via Ivo Curcin around 1960.
Ivo Curcin was the son of Ivan Mestrovic's long-time collaborator and friend, Milan Curcin. Milan Curcin was the author of two monographs on the sculptor, published in 1919 and 1935. The two men were both political dissidents and it was to Curcin that Mestrovic entrusted his villa at Split during the difficult war years. Mestrovic was emprisoned in Zagreb in 1941 after he refused to take the post of Chancellor at the Academy of Arts in Nazi-occupied Vienna, and, following his release, lived the rest of his life exiled from his beloved homeland. Curcin and his family lived at Mestrovic's villa from 1942-7. Ivo Curcin was named after his famous godfather.
The present relief can be closely compared with a number of Mestrovic's works from the period of 1911 to 1913. Mestrovic began to carve a series of religious works in this period and continued through the years of the Great War to use these biblical themes to express the great suffering and tragedy of the age. The present relief can be most closely compared in stylistic terms to a Head of Christ, two versions of which are recorded by Curcin dating to 1911 and 1913. The long flowing hair of Christ, carved in gently waving vertical lines can be seen in both sculptures. The crown of thorns is depicted as a softly interlocking chain and the stylised lines continue across the scalp. Christ on the Cross is also related to the sculptor's relief of Christ and the Woman of Samaria from 1913. The sharply angled jaw-line and the distinctive linear treatment of the ear are seen in both reliefs. Finally the flattened forms and the subtle description of the musculature can be compared to the celebrated 1913 relief of The Descent from the Cross, sold in these rooms on 11υth November 2008 for £205,250.
The present relief is particularly beautiful and displays a delicate sensitivity to the subject. Unlike the torturous later reworking of the subject in Mestrovic's famous Crucifix of 1916, here Mestrovic eschews a harrowing interpretation. His Christ on the Cross is suffused with pathos, yet manages to transcend the anguish of the subject to convey a sense of hallowed serenity.
RELATED LITERATURE
B. Gagro, Ivan Mestrovic, Zagreb, 1987, p. 293, nos. 87-108; M. Curcin, Ivan Mestrovic, London, 1919, pp. 64-4; M. Curcin, Ivan Mestrovic, Zagreb, 1935
