The Crucifixion

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The Crucifixion

Artist Andrea di Bartolo (Italian (Siena), ca. 1370–1428)

Place of OriginSiena, Italy

Dateafter 1400

Dimensions26 3/8 × 39 3/8 × 3 in. (67 × 100 × 7.6 cm)

MediumTempera on wood panel

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1952.103

On View

Toledo Museum of Art (2445 Monroe Street), Gallery, 19

Label TextThe drama and emotion of the scene of Christ’s crucifixion is captured here in details like the grieving angels, the soldier breaking the legs of one of the crucified thieves, the collapse of the Virgin Mary, and the soldiers gambling for Christ’s clothes. This painting was once a small part of a large altarpiece created by the Bartolo family workshop in Siena, Italy. It would have been the center panel of the predella (see diagram) and flanked by three panels on either side telling the story of the Passion—the events leading up to the resurrection of Christ. Often trained as goldsmiths, the Bartolo family artists were skilled at punching or tooling patterns into gold backgrounds and haloes. The brilliant, jewel-like colors are also hallmarks of their work. Paintings done in this elegant manner are often called International Gothic, a sumptuous style associated with the royal courts and used throughout Europe at the beginning of the 1400s.Published ReferencesBerenson, B., The Central Italian Pictures of the Renaissance, New York, 1909, p. 141.

"An Early Sienese Paintings of The Crucifixion," Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, 144, Apr. 1953, pp. 1-2, repr.

Art Quarterly, XVI, 1953, p. 165f., repr. p. 166.

Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, no. 144, April 1953, repr. (as by Taddeo di Bartolo).

Berenson, B., Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Central Italian and North Italian Schools, London, 1968, I, p. 8.

Fredericksen, Burton B., and Federico Zeri, Census of Pre-nineteenth Century Italian Paintings in North American Collections, Cambridge, MA, 1972, pp. 6, 292, 641.

The Toledo Museum of Art, European Painting, Toledo 1976, p. 19, pl. 4.