Christ Blessing

Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Artist: Andrea Solario (Italian, Milan ca. 1465–1524 Milan)

Medium: Oil on wood

Dimensions: 80 1/4 x 51 1/2 in. (203.8 x 130.8 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: From the Collection of James Stillman, Gift of Dr. Ernest G. Stillman, 1922

Accession Number: 22.16.12

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 608

This is one of Solario’s last works and must have been painted for a church in or near Milan. The architecture of the frame must have matched the painted architecture in the picture so as to create the illusion that the figure of Christ stands in a space immediately contiguous with our own. Although the panel may have stood on an altar, it could also have been fitted into a recess in a wall as part of the decoration of a chapel or room in a church.