Marble

c.80 cm high

Provenance

Probably the Oratorio di San Pietro, Reggio Emilia, c.1782; 

Private collection, Italy; 

Italian art market, 2024; 

Where acquired.

This recently rediscovered marble Crucifix constitutes a significant addition to the catalogue of the sculptor Prospero Spani, known as Clemente. Crucifixes carved in marble are exceptionally rare, owing to the technical and material challenges posed by the medium, particularly the difficulty of rendering projecting limbs and the substantial loss of stone required to free the figure fully in the round.

Michelangelo Buonarroti’s projected marble Calvary, which included a Crucifix, remained unrealised, while the celebrated Crucifix by Benvenuto Cellini, now in the monastery of San Lorenzo at the Escorial, stands as the principal point of reference for the genre.

Although executed in two blocks joined at the waist, the present work — smaller in scale yet highly refined — reveals remarkable technical ambition, particularly in the carving of the projecting arms and the sophisticated modelling of the anatomy, drapery and hair. Datable to the mature phase of Clemente’s career, it may be regarded as the second surviving marble Crucifix of the period and one of only a handful produced across the entire sixteenth century.