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Look up from the soldiers and onlookers gathered under the cliff to the pale body bound high on the dead tree, lit against the storm clouds.
The companion canvas shows how the story ended: lured into a trap by Oroetus of Sardis, Polycrates was put to death, and his body hangs from a dead tree. The Art Institute of Chicago sets Rosa’s wild cliffs, dark grottoes and sudden light against the serene, classical landscapes painted by Claude and Poussin, his contemporaries in Rome, where he settled in 1649.
Oil on canvas · 73.4 × 98.9 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · Baroque
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Details and source
- Museum title
- Polycrates' Crucifixion
- Artist
- Salvator Rosa (Italian, 1615–1673)
- Date
- 1664
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 73.4 × 98.9 cm (28 7/8 × 38 15/16 in.); Framed: 87 × 112.4 × 7 cm (34 1/4 × 44 1/4 × 2 3/4 in.)
- Credit line
- Wentworth Greene Field Memorial Fund
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.