,_cristo_sul_monte_degli_olivi,_1500-1540_ca._forse_da_barga.JPG?width=1200)
Christ on the Mount of Olives
Luca della Robbia the Younger (1475-c. 1548) · 1485-1515
On a rocky mound Jesus kneels in prayer while an angel with a halo offers him the cup of his coming Passion. At the foot of the hill the apostles Peter, John and Andrew have fallen asleep, slumped against the rock. The altarpiece is more than two metres high and modelled in terracotta, glazed in the white and blue that made the Della Robbia workshop famous, with some parts left unglazed and painted. Look at the border that frames the scene: a wreath of pine cones, lemons and bunches of grapes, the garland the family used to make devotional images festive and bright.
Luca della Robbia the Younger was the grandnephew of the Luca who invented the family's glazing technique in the fourteen forties, and he ran the workshop in its last generation. The retable may come from Barga, a small town in the mountains north of Lucca that still has Della Robbia altars in its churches. It belonged to the Marchese Giampietro Campana, whose vast Roman collection was bought by the French state in 1861 after his conviction for embezzlement and shown at the Palais de l'Industrie in 1862; this piece entered the Louvre in November of that year.
Did You Know? The altarpiece came to Paris with the enormous Campana collection, bought wholesale after its owner was jailed for misusing bank funds.
Unlock the Full Guide
Read every room and listen to every work in all museums with premium.