The deep emotional piety shown in these expressive faces and gestures is made more poignant by the weighty drapery folds modeled in sharply contrasting highlights and shadows, by the vivid coloring, and by the taut composition. The unidentified artist has been linked to a miniature painter who illuminated several manuscripts, including a life of Saint George in the Vatican, for cardinal Stefaneschi, resident at the papal court in Avignon from 1309–1341, and a missal, probably for the same patron, in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York. Also in the Museum's collection is a companion panel, The Lamentation. Both were part of a larger ensemble of hinged panels, two others of which are missing and two of which are preserved in Florence.
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Artwork Details
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Title:The Crucifixion
Artist:Master of the Codex of Saint George (Italian, active Florence, ca. 1315–35)
Date:ca. 1330–35
Geography:Made in Avignon, France
Culture:Italian
Medium:Tempera on wood, gold ground
Dimensions:Overall: 18 x 11 3/4 in. (45.7 x 29.8 cm) Painted surface: 15 5/8 x 10 5/8 in. (39.7 x 27 cm)
Classification:Paintings-Panels
Credit Line:The Cloisters Collection, 1961
Object Number:61.200.1
The grieving faces and bold gestures on these exquisitey painted panels, highlighted against a stark gold ground, dramatically convey the emotion of the Passion of the Christ. The panels are among the few surviving works by the so-called Master of the Codex of Saint George, who is named for a missal he illuminated now in the Biblioteca Apolistica Vaticana, Vatican City. Although trained in Florence, the Master of the Codex of Saint George spent much of his career in Avignon, home of the papal court from 1309 to 1377, where he assimilated characteristics of Sienese and French paintings of the period.
These panels were once thought to constitute a complete devotional diptych, but careful examination has shown that they were originally part of a folding polyptych probably composed of six panels organized in an accordion-like fashion, with the pairs of panels closing over one another face-to-face. The cycle likely began with the Annunciation and the Nativity (both missing), continued with the two Cloisters panels, and concluded with the Resurrection and the Coronation of the Virgin (both Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence).
Inscription: (on cross): . I[esus] . N[azarenus] . R[ex] . I[udaeorum] . (Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews [John 19:19])
(on flag): SPQR [Senatus Populusque Romanus] (The Senate and the People of Rome)
(back): XIV – SIECLE [should be SAECLUM] (fourteenth century)
(on front of frame): + crucifixus [should be in crucifix] . ruam . pro nobis + (may I fall [on] the crucifix for us)
Marshal Nicholas Soult, Paris ; Augustus Stevens, Paris (until d. 1867) ; his posthumous sale, Phillips, London British (May 11, 1869, no. 68, as Fra Angelico) ; Henry G. Bohn, Twickenham (1869–d. 1884) ; his posthumous sale, Christie, Manson and Woods, London (March 19-28, 1885, no. 77, as Fra Angelico) ; Charles Butler British, London (1885-1891) ; Robert Henry and Evelyn Benson, London (1891-1927) ; [ Duveen Brothers, London, Paris and New York (1927)] ; Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller Jr. American (1927-1960)
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