Ivan Mestrovic, carved in 1913

Purchased from the artist by Mrs Vivien St George in 1915 and thence by descent

Venice Biennale, 1914
Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1915, the exhibition continued to Leeds and Glasgow

E. Cozzani 'Ivan Mestrovic' in L'Eroica Rassegna d'ogni Poesia 4, no. 2, winter 1914, pp. 52-66
XI. Esposizione Internazionale della Citta di Venezia 1914, ex. cat. Venice, 1914, no. 15
C. Aitken, 'Notes. Ivan Mestrovic', The Burlington Magazine, no. 26, 1915, pp. 259-60
R. Ross, "A Monthly Chronicle: Ivan Mestrovic' in The Burlington Magazine, no. 27, 1915, pp. 209-11
M. Curcin, Ivan Mestrovic, A Monograph, London, 1919, , pp. 60-6
E. Clegg, ''A warrior fallen in a just cause': a rediscovered Mestrovic 'Descent from the Cross'' in The Burlington Magazine, December 2004, pp. 823-7

Overall the condition of the relief is very good. There is some wear and dirt to the surface consistent with age and travel between different locations since its creation. The relief is carved in six original vertical sections, the joints between sections are slightly visible and the joint between the second and third sections from the right is slightly misaligned. There is open joint above the raised hands of the central figure as visible in the catalogue photograph. There is some dirt to the surface particularly at the raised hands and arms of the central figure. There are a number of knots in the wood, consistent with the material. There is an area of particular wear to the virgin's left ankle. There are two small, original wood insertions, at Christ's hip and at the left edge of the relief, as visible in the catalogue photograph. The colour varies across the surface of the relief, in part due to wear and dirt and in part to natural variation in the colour of the wood.
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Carved in Belgrade in 1913 and exhibited at the unprecedented one-man show at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1915, the present important Descent from the Cross by Ivan Mestrovic was recently re-discovered and published in The Burlington Magazine in 2004.

The Victoria and Albert exhibition, the first honouring a living artist, was a testament to Mestrovic's artistic importance as well as to the political interests which he represented as a member of the Yugoslav Committee. The artist-patriot was instrumental in the setting up of Yugoslavia after the First World War, a project which he had come to London to work on during his years of exile from his native Croatia. The Victoria and Albert exhibition was opened by Lord Robert Cecil, assistant minister for Foreign Affairs.

The Descent had previously been shown in 1914 at the last Venice Biennale before the outbreak of the First World War – the label survives on the reverse. It attracted the critical attention of Ettore Cozzani who responded to the immediacy of the wood carving writing that 'one can feel the mashing and snapping of the fibres under the sharp steel blade.' Cozzani was the first to recognise the significance of the relief in the context of the war, a recognition which Charles Aitken, director of the Tate gallery, repeated in 1915 when he wrote that 'the mother of Christ resents His death as that of a warrior fallen in a just cause.'

This significance was not lost on Mrs Evelyn St George who purchased the relief directly from the artist in 1915 for £600 – the highest price Mestrovic had then achieved in England. Mrs St George, an American heiress and the companion of the painter William Orpen, met the Croatian sculptor through her friend Lady Cunard. Despite his bare grasp of English Mestrovic was a highly sought-after addition to the soirées of London society's most influential hostesses. The relief had a particular resonance for Mrs St George. Her immense wealth and luxurious lifestyle had been no protection against the personal consequences of a world war: the tragic loss of her son, Avenel, in 1914 at the First Battle of Ypres. The relief was the first of the memorials Mrs St George would make for her son. She also financed the St George ward of the military hospital at Oldway House, near Paignton in Devon and commissioned a stained glass window for the reconstructed church of Zillebeke near Ypres.

The Descent was one of the first of a series of religious images which Mestrovic continued to carve throughout the war years. His friend the painter Jozo Kljakovic later recalled that 'he did little else during the war except these details from the life of Christ. So deeply did the war shake him.' These works, mostly carved in wood relief, included the imposing Crucifix of 1919, as well as reliefs of The Deposition, The Temptation and Christ and Mary Magdalen, some of which were destined for Mestrovic's chapel at Kastelet, near Split. Mestrovic said directly that pondering the war and the need for a European unity 'brought me to biblical themes.' The destruction and chaos of the war had left the artist disenchanted with political rationalisations and he turned to a different source of inspiration:

'The real guide is faith... when we try to find total harmony in what we call justice, truth, beauty, wisdom, divided like this they glimmer like fireflies and are gone.'

The Deposition is typical of the intuitive fervour of Mestrovic's religious works. The strong linear quality and flattened forms are reminiscent of the Byzantine icons which inspired him in Orthodox Serbia. The figures are cramped and crowded into an acute pitch of emotional intensity. Distress is articulated in gestures and expressions closely juxtaposed, with the faces of Christ and his mother mirrored in a poignant motif. The carving itself has a particular material integrity as a knot in the wood is utilised in the place of the wound in Christ's side. The exceptional quality of the relief drew praise from critics in both Venice and London with one London critic, Robert Ross calling it 'one of the finest things in the exhibition.' A later version of the relief is in the collection of the Tate Gallery, London.

RELATED LITERATURE
Keckemet, fig. 85; Ivan Mestrovic: Skulpturen, nos. 35-40