Christ Falling on the Way to Calvary

Christ has fallen under the cross on the road to Calvary, and as Simon of Cyrene heaves it up and the soldiers press him on, he turns his face back toward his mother - who reaches out and swoons into the arms of the holy women, the spasimo, the swoon, that gives the picture its name. Raphael charges the scene with diagonal force and a current of looks between son and mother. Painted for a church in Palermo and, by legend, nearly lost in a shipwreck on the way, it shows his late style growing darker and more dramatic. Duccio staged the same road to Calvary, two centuries earlier, elsewhere in this collection.