Head of Christ

The Head of Christ, also called the Sallman Head, is a 1940 portrait painting of Jesus of Nazareth by American artist Warner Sallman (1892-1968). As an extraordinarily successful work of Christian popular devotional art, it had been reproduced over half a billion times worldwide by the end of the 20th century. Enlarged copies of the work have been made for churches and small pocket or wallet-sized prayer cards, bearing the image, have been mass-produced for private devotional use. The painting is said to have "become the basis for [the] visualization of Jesus" for "hundreds of millions" of people.

Origins

The Head of Christ originated as a charcoal sketch entitled The Son of Man done in 1924 and sold to be the cover of the Covenant Companion, the denominational magazine for the Evangelical Covenant Church. Sallman did several variations of the painting over the years, and the first oil version was done in 1935 for the fiftieth anniversary celebration of the Evangelical Covenant Church. In 1940, he was asked to reproduce that painting by the students of North Park Theological Seminary. This reproduction was seen by representatives of the Gospel Trumpet Company, the publishing arm of the Church of God (Anderson), who created a new company called Kriebel and Bates to market Sallman's work. For the next thirty years, Kriebel and Bates marketed over 100 Warner Sallman works. When Kriebel and Bates dissolved, the copyrights to these works were acquired by Warner Press.

Head of Christ (Rembrandt)

The Head of Christ is a 1648 painting by the Dutch artist Rembrandt, based on a Jewish model and thus marking a turning-point in the artist's work. It is now in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin.

Philadelphia panel

There are multiple versions of Rembrandt's Head of Christ which compose an international collection of paintings in the possession of a number of different cultural institutions and individuals. In 2004, dendrochronological analysis determined that the source of the oak panel—both the original from the seventeenth century—and the main one came from the Baltic/Polish regions. The analysis yielded a probable creation date of 1628 or later.

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Head of Christ (Correggio)

Head of Christ is a painting in oil on panel by the Italian Renaissance painter Correggio, (Antonio Allegri, 1489 – 1534), dated 1521. It depicts the head of Christ, wearing the crown of thorns. In the background there is a white cloth showing that the image represents the Veil of Veronica, but Christ's head is given volume through alternate use of light and dark shadows. The painting is in the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu, Los Angeles. Correggio was noted for creating some of the most sumptuous religious paintings of the period. The Getty Museum considers this artwork as one of the masterpieces of painting held by the museum.

Painting

The painting is a small artwork, probably intended for private devotion, which depicts the head of Christ crowned with thorns, in half profile turning his head towards the viewer. Through the use of the alternate use of light and shade; the chiaroscuro technique is used by the artist to highlight the line of the nose, cheekbones and the neck. All this, however, is softened by the muted tones of the nuances he used when depicting the color of the body. The strong shadows and the sculptural treatment of the head make this one of the most distinguishable representations on the Veil of Veronica. According to legend, Christ stumbled on his way to Golgotha carrying the cross. Veronica took off her own veil, and wiped his face with it. Christ's features were miraculously imprinted on the veil.