This painting was documented as a study by Hofstede de Groot in 1915, who wrote:
131. The Elevation of the Cross. Sm. 92. A study for the Munich picture (130). [" This masterly study, apparently for the preceding picture, is composed of a number of figures, among which is seen conspicuously the Saviour attached to the Cross, which several men are in the act of raising. An officer, mounted on a brown horse, with his back to the spectator, is on the left, and on the opposite side may be noticed a man stooping to take something from a basket. The gloom which prevails is partly relieved by a stream of light bursting from the midst of dark clouds. Painted in a free and spirited manner" (Sm.).] Panel, 15+1⁄2 inches by 11+1⁄2 inches.
Exhibited at the British Institution, London, 1834, No. 85.
His entry was copied from Smith in 1836, who wrote:
92. The Elevation of the Cross. This masterly study, apparently for the preceding picture, is composed of a number of figures, among which is seen conspicuously the Saviour attached to the cross, which several men are in the act of raising. An officer, mounted on a brown horse, with his back to the spectator, is on the left, and on the opposite side may be noticed a man stooping to take something from a basket. The gloom which prevails is partially relieved by a stream of lioht bursting from the midst of dark clouds. Painted in a free and spirited manner.
1 ft. 3+1⁄2 in. by 11+1⁄2 in.— P. Now in the collection of the Right Hon. Sir Charles Bagot, K.C.[3]
Abraham Bredius bought the painting in 1921 as a genuine Rembrandt and included it in his 1935 catalog raisonné. Kurt Bauch expressed doubts about the work, and Horst Gerson called it a ‘crude imitation, vaguely based on Rembrandt’.[4]