Public domain Catholic paintings of Jesus Christ.
When Christ paused to rest at Jacob's Well, a holy site for both Samaritans and Jews, he requested a drink of water from a Samaritan woman. Though she was initially surprised, since Jews and Samaritans were traditionally enemies, she became increasingly intrigued by the knowledgeable and all-seeing visitor...
The New Testament relates an occasion when, upon visiting the Temple of Jerusalem during Passover, Jesus found it filled with livestock and turned into a marketplace by merchants and money changers. Furious that the sacred place had been turned into a “den of thieves”, Christ fashioned a whip out of...
In the upper half of this oil study, Christ is depicted in glory surrounded by adoring angels. Looking up at him are four martyr saints: Saints Celsus, Marcionilla, Julian, and Basilissa. Pompeo Batoni made this sketch when he was only twenty-eight, in preparation for his first important commission in Rome....
In this depiction of Christ’s arduous journey to his own crucifixion, Domenichino situates Christ at the forefront of the composition, gazing sorrowfully out at the viewer. Christ’s oppression and the cruelty of his tormentors are emphasized by the crowded composition, in which the figures seem to bear down...
Christ, haggard and sorrowful, weeps copiously. He wears the Crown of Thorns; its vicious spines pierce his forehead and his right eyebrow and extend menacingly outwards, accentuated by the brilliant golden radiance behind him. Blood from his wounds runs through his hair, down the neckline of his cloak and beneath...
As was customary for promising Dutch painters in the 1600s, Gerrit van Honthorst traveled to Italy to complete his artistic training. In Rome he fell under the spell of Caravaggio's revolutionary style and adopted his use of realistic figures and dramatic lighting, known as chiaroscuro. In Italy he...
Drops of blood are visible on Christ's brow as he carries the cross to his Crucifixion. The immediacy of this close-up image invites the viewer to contemplate the pain and meaning of Christ's sacrifice. Associated with Leonardo da Vinci, Marco d'Oggiono subtly manipulated light...
In this painting, the Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist, and Saint Mary Magdalene grieve over the body of Christ while displaying it to the viewer. Although Gerard David and earlier Netherlandish painters often treated the Lamentation as a private devotional subject, this panel was part of a large altarpiece...
Stories of Christ’s childhood and adolescence became increasingly popular during the Counter-Reformation because they were easily understood by a broad public. Rather than taking a story from the Bible, Zurbarán appears to have invented this subject, in which Jesus pricks himself on a crown of thorns he is weaving,...
This manuscript was illuminated by a circle of at least five highly organized manuscript painters active in the Flemish cities of Ghent and Bruges. The principal illuminator was Alexander Bening, who painted the majority of the book's miniatures. Manuscripts produced by this circle of artists are renowned for...
DID YOU KNOW? The crown worn by God in this painting resembles a papal tiara, last used by a Catholic pope in 1964. DESCRIPTION This vividly colored altarpiece was made in Antwerp, the center of religious learning in Catholic Flanders. In the mid-1500s when the Catholic Church mounted a defense...
Against an open, hilly landscape, the lifeless body of Christ hangs from a wood cross, his slumped head, open mouth and tense muscles capture the dramatic moment of his death. The monumental figures of the Virgin (left) and Saint John the Evangelist (right) stand at his side and in the...
In this painting, El Greco combines the iconic power of the crucifix with the expressive power of landscape painting. He sets the cross atop Golgotha, the "place of the skull," with Jerusalem looming in the background. He eliminates the other characters from the biblical narrative, encouraging the viewer...
As the innkeeper looks on, the resurrected Christ reveals himself to his apostles Cleophas and Saint Peter, as described in the Gospel of Luke: "When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened,...
This Coronation of the Virgin may be the first time the subject, which originated in the West, appears in Venetian art. Some of the earliest representations were carved above cathedral doorways in France—and certain elements in the Gallery's painting—its elaborate halos, for example—share in the...
This image, along with Saint Peter and Saint James Major, originally occupied a single panel. They and two others—one now in a museum in France, the other lost—were cut from the same altarpiece. It would have been an imposing work with triangular gables (see Reconstruction). The considerable dimensions...
In this small painting, the figure of Christ is almost lost amid the dense, multi-colored crowd. Identified by a pale yellow halo, Christ stands on a rustic podium near the crowd's center. He presents his sermon on the conditions of blessedness. Behind Christ, his disciples pay rapt attention,...
This crowded and colorful panel displays the story of Christ's Crucifixion along with episodes of damnation and salvation. At the left, Christ carries the cross and Veronica hands him her veil. In the center, Christ's broken body hangs on the cross between the two thieves. At...
The mood is one of lavish ceremony, as Christ places an ornate gold crown upon the Virgin Mary’s slightly bowed head. Groups of musical angels watch from either side as she is crowned Queen of Heaven. Gentile da Fabriano used extensive tooling, pastiglia (areas of raised gesso which is...
Light illuminates the neck and shoulders of a woman looking down at the figure of Christ kneeling on the ground. The Pharisees had brought to Christ a woman caught in the act of committing adultery. When they asked whether she should be stoned, he stooped down and began to write...
The son of Fra Filippo Lippi, Filippino began his training as a very young boy in his father's workshop. Documents record a partial payment he received in 1469 for the frescoes in the apse of the duomo in Spoleto, whose execution, interrupted by Fra Filippo's death...
Like Duccio’s The Nativity with the Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel, this small panel was part of the Maestà, one of the most important masterpieces in the history of Western painting. The monumental Maestà was a two-sided altarpiece that dominated the main altar in Siena’s cathedral for nearly two...
Christ Triumphant over Sin and Death, also known as Christ Triumphant over Death and Sin, or sometimes as Salvator Mundi, is a circa 1618 oil painting by the Flemish Baroque artist Peter Paul Rubens. It is on display in the Musée des Beaux-Arts of Strasbourg, France. Its inventory number is...
The Corpse of Christ is a painting by the Italian Baroque master Annibale Carracci, dating to c. 1583-1585 and housed in the Staatsgalerie of Stuttgart, Germany. The work, dating to Carracci's early career, is a manifest homage to Andrea Mantegna's Dead Christ, which he had perhaps...
