Christ Blessing, Saviour of the World

Under the half-length figure of Christ runs a line of Latin in capitals. POSCE NE DUBITA, it begins, and it promises that whatever you ask of the Father in his name will be done for you. The words come from Christ's farewell to his disciples in John's Gospel, where he speaks to all of them together. Here the promise has been turned into the singular, addressed to one person, whoever happens to be standing in front of the wall.

That suits the place it was made for. Luini painted the figure in fresco for a small oratory, a prayer chapel at Greco, then a village just north of Milan, and he surrounded it with a painted border so that it reads like a framed devotional picture. Christ raises his right hand in blessing. In his left he holds a clear crystal globe, the world he has come to save, which is why the type is called Saviour of the World, Salvator Mundi.

The Louvre dates the fresco only to the 16th century. The usual dating is around 1520 to 1525, the period given to the other paintings from the same oratory, though no document fixes the year. Two larger scenes from those walls, a Nativity and an Adoration of the Magi, hang in the same room.