Bernardo Strozzi

This is a characteristic work by Bernardo Strozzi and a unique composition from his oeuvre. Typical of the artist are the fluid and voluminous folds of the white drapery as well as the ruddy complexion of the faces. The work is datable to circa 1640, after Strozzi moved from his native Genoa to Venice, where he was to spend the rest of his life. The composition may also have been inspired in part by Titian's fresco of the same subject of circa 1523-4 in the Doge's Palace, of which Strozzi would have been well aware by this point in his stay in Venice. 

The subject of Saint Christopher carrying the Christ Child across a river is related in The Golden Legend. The Saint (alas removed from the Calendar in 1969, four centuries after the Council of Trent tried to abolish his cult) was a Canaanite of huge 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, carrying the poor and weak across the river, guided by a hermit. One night he carried a small child, who grew heavier and heavier with each step, until revealing himself as Christ, telling Saint Christopher (in Greek "Christ-bearer") that he had been carrying the weight of the world.