Venetian School, Late 16th/Early 17th Century

This composition derives from a detail featured in a woodcut based on a design by Titian depicting a triumphal procession of biblical figures.¹ The print enjoyed widespread popularity throughout Europe and is known from several sixteenth-century versions published as early as 1517.²

The subject of Saint Christopher carrying the Christ Child across a river relates to a story recounted in The Golden Legend. According to the tale, the Saint (alas removed from the Calendar in 1969) was a Canaanite of colossal stature who sought to serve the most powerful person in the land. When his first master, a king, failed him, he served the devil until he saw him trembling before the Cross, whereupon he resolved to serve Christ by carrying the young and weak across a tumultuous river. One night he carried a small child, who grew heavier and heavier with each step, nearly drowning them both under the burden of his weight. On the other side, the child revealed himself as Christ, telling Saint Christopher that he had been carrying the weight of the world.

1. For one example, see British Museum, inv.no. 2005,U.87.

2. See M. Bury, "The 'Triumph of Christ', after Titian" in Burlington Magazine 131, no. 1032 (March 1989), pp. 188-197.