Chicago's Chagall gets its audience with Pope Francis

Nov. 10--Pope Francis has now seen his favorite painting, a Marc Chagall canvas from the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, in person.

Tuesday morning in Florence, Italy, Francis was able to see Chagall's "White Crucifixion," which he has identified in published reports as his favorite, in Florence's Baptistry of St. John, shortly before speaking to open a church conference there.

Art Institute experts, including President Douglas Druick, who was there to greet the pontiff, had hoped they might hear him explain his fondness for the image.

But the viewing, conducted amid a group of officials and well-wishers, appeared to be brief in the video posted by the Vatican.

Druick reported that the Pope seemed pleased to encounter the Chagall, said Art Institute spokeswoman Amanda Hicks. Pope Francis said again that his "favorite artists are Caravaggio and Chagall" but did not elaborate, according to the account Druick gave Hicks.

"Marc Chagall's painting has such an important story, and today's events are another amazing chapter in its history," Stephanie D'Alessandro, the Art Institute's curator of international modern art, via e-mail from Chicago.

The iconic Chagall work depicts Jesus as a Jew, on the cross, amid scenes of the persecution of Jews. It has been in Florence, at the Palazzo Strozzi, for the exhibition "Divine Beauty: From Van Gogh to Chagall and Fontana," running through Jan. 24, 2016. It was moved temporarily to the Baptistry and hung on a wall there so the Pope might be able to take it in.

The painting will return to the Chicago museum after the Florence show ends.