Fragment from Christ Carrying the Cross: Saint John the Evangelist

Scientific imaging techniques, which can reveal information that lies below or has been removed from the surface layers of a painting, have determined that Saint John the Evangelist and the Mourning Virgin were once part of the same painting, Christ Carrying the Cross. Infrared reflectography revealed drawn strokes of Christ’s curling hair at the lower right of the Saint John panel. X-radiography shows that the top of the cross, still visible in the Saint John panel, occupied the lower left of Mourning Virgin before being scraped away and overpainted. The original work may have been repurposed to create multiple paintings of single, expressive devotional figures.