This cross was likely made in a family-owned workshop of Arab-Christian artisans in Bethlehem or Jerusalem who carved objects from olive wood and inlaid them with mother-of-pearl and animal bone. Known for elaborate models of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the workshops relied on the sale of crosses, rosaries, crowns, and small boxes to pilgrims, people who traveled to the area to visit sacred places.

The base of the cross is decorated with the Franciscan Coat of Arms, a cross with two arms (one of Christ, the other of St. Francis of Assisi) crossing each other. Franciscans, a mendicant religious order within the Catholic Church, facilitated the trade of Christian objects like this throughout western Europe. Isabella Stewart Gardner purchased this cross in Venice in 1893. Today the cross is in the Spanish Chapel and sits on top of a prie-dieu, which is a type of kneeling bench designed for use by a person at prayer. There is another wood cross in the collection that is likely from the same series of workshops in the Vatichino gallery.