Salvator Mundi (Palma Vecchio)

Salvator Mundi (Jesus Christ, Saviour of the World) is a religious painting by Italian Renaissance artist Palma Vecchio, dated to c. 1518-1522. It is on display in the Musée des Beaux-Arts of Strasbourg, France (inventory number 585).^[2]

Salvator Mundi
Artist	Palma Vecchio
Year	c. 1518-1522
Medium	oil painting on panel (poplar)
Movement	Italian Renaissance Catholic art Venetian painting
Subject	Salvator Mundi
Dimensions	74 cm × 63 cm (29 in × 25 in)[1]
Location	Musée des Beaux-Arts, Strasbourg
Accession	1898

History

The painting was bought in 1898 by Wilhelm von Bode, from a collection in Padua belonging to the estate of the Giustiniani and Barbarigo families. It had long been believed to be a work by Giorgione, and the first attribution to Palma was published in 1875 by Pietro Selvatico [it]. Bernard Berenson, and some other 20th-century art historians, disputed it, but it has been universally accepted since the 1992 publication of the monograph by Philip Rylands.^[1][2]

The pose and the face of Jesus Christ are reminiscent of the slightly earlier Portrait of a Poet, now in the National Gallery.^[3][2] He is holding a transparent globe, almost invisible to the naked eye, and sitting in front of a green curtain opening on a landscape. This devotional work, executed in the manner of Venetian portrait painting, was very popular in its day; six copies or variations have survived (National Museum, Wrocław; Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston; etc.).^[1]