Christ from a Descent from the Cross, known as the Courajod Christ
Unknown · c. 1125-1150
A life-size wooden Christ hangs with both arms stretched wide, yet his head drops to one side and his body bends as if it were being lowered from the cross. That is exactly what is happening: the figure is the only surviving piece of a large Descent from the Cross group, in which other carved figures, now lost, once supported his arms and held his body. Notice the calm face with closed eyes, the long parallel folds of the loincloth and the traces of the original painted colours that once brought the whole scene to life. The left arm and part of the feet are later replacements.
The work was made in Burgundy around the second quarter of the twelfth century, when monumental wooden sculpture of this kind was set up over altars and in choirs. It is named after Louis Courajod, the Louvre curator and historian of medieval sculpture who owned it before 1878 and gave it to the museum in 1895. The gift was one of the founding pieces of the Louvre's collection of Romanesque sculpture, and the figure remains one of the rare surviving wooden Deposition groups from twelfth-century France.
Did You Know? The figure only makes sense when you imagine the missing helpers: it was designed to be held up by other carved figures taking Christ down from the cross.
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