PROVENANCE: Barnabite monastery, Paris, before December 30, 1790; Depot (Rue de Beaune), Paris, by November 12, 1798; Church of the Petits Augustins, Paris, before 1800-01; Tiberghien sale, Brussels, May 22, 1827, lot 43; Sale, Paris, April 14-15, 1828, lot 41; George Bacon, England; St. Barnabus Cathedral, Nottingham, England, c. 1842-44; Sale, Sotheby's, London, March 20, 1964, lot 11; T. Rogers, London, 1964; BJU, 1965.

Champaigne began his artistic training in his birthplace of Brussels under two minor artists, but went to Paris in 1621 and studied with George Lallement and Nicolas Duchesne, whose daughter he married. His early works betray his Flemish origins in their emulation of Rubens and van Dyck. Champaigne's style evolved throughout his career, but he is most recognized for his classicist religious works. His patrons included Cardinal Richelieu, the Queen Mother, King Louis XIII, Anne of Austria, and King Louis XIV. Such prestige led to his involvement (along with Vouet and Bourdon) in founding the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in 1648. Champaigne's religious works became much more personally meaningful after he became involved with the ascetic Jansenist sect of Port-Royal in Paris . His subsequent work betrays a profound pietistic quality that sheds the theatricality and emotionalism of his earlier work.

The present Christ of Derision is an autograph replica of a painting Champaigne made for the church of Port-Royal-des-Champs (now in the Musée National des Granges de Port-Royal). The original work has Christ robed in brilliant scarlet, according to the translation in Matthew 27:28. Champaigne treated this version, however, with the color purple according to the translation in Mark 15:17. The classicist quality of Christ's restrained figure depicted in monumental contrapposto repose illustrates Champaigne's debt to Italian art, yet the painting retains the artist's distinct interpretation through the lens of Jansenist influence. The work is replete with meditative reminders of Christ's sufferings, such as the rope and whip of the flagellation, the crown of thorns, the reed and robe of mockery, and the minutely rendered drops of blood that flow from His body onto the cold stone floor.