Christ carrying the cross

This is a small panel, made for prayer rather than for a church wall. Gian Francesco de Maineri worked around 1500 in Ferrara, in the service of the Este, the family who ruled the city. He shows Christ close up and half length, carrying the cross, the face brought almost to the surface so that whoever prayed met his eyes at arm's length. Pictures like this were kept in a bedroom or a study and looked at alone, meant to stir private feeling. Maineri came back to the subject more than once, and this type of image, a suffering Christ against a dark ground, was copied and varied across northern Italy in these years.