Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum | Busch-Reisinger Museum | Arthur M. Sackler Museum

This painting was most likely the central part of a portable tabernacle and dates to the artist’s early career. The angels sweeping in from the heavens bring drama and a sense of urgency to the composition, which is further intensified by the figures of Saints Clare and Francis, who strain their heads back to observe the turbulence above them. Their presence suggests that the work was commissioned by a Franciscan, whose order was particularly drawn to the veneration of the Crucifixion. The figures of the Virgin and Saint John frame the composition and serve as intercessors for the beholder. Pietro had strong connections with the Franciscans, and executed some of his most celebrated frescoes in the Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi, the order’s mother church.

Object Number

1943.119

People

Pietro Lorenzetti, Italian (active 1306-1348)

Title

Christ on the Cross with the Virgin and Saints Clare, John the Evangelist, and Francis

Classification

Paintings

Work Type

painting

Date

c. 1320

Places

Creation Place: Europe, Italy, Tuscany, Siena

Culture

Italian

Persistent Link

https://hvrd.art/o/222207

Medium

Tempera and gold leaf on panel

Dimensions

sight: 45.4 x 36.3 cm (17 7/8 x 14 5/16 in.)
frame: 55.5 x 45 cm (21 7/8 x 17 11/16 in.)

Credit Line

Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop

Accession Year

1943

Object Number

1943.119

Division

European and American Art

Contact

am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu

THIS WORK MAY NOT BE LENT BY THE TERMS OF ITS ACQUISITION TO THE HARVARD ART MUSEUMS.

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Bernard Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: a list of the principal artists and their works, with an index of places, The Clarendon Press (Oxford, England, 1932), p. 293

Millard Meiss, "Nuovi dipinti e vecchi problemi", Rivista d'Arte (1955), vol. 30, no. 93, pp. 107-145, pp.113-118, repr. p. 114 as fig. 4

Carlo Volpe, "Nuove proposte sui Lorenzetti", Arte antica e moderna (July/September 1960), pp. 263-277, pp. 264, 265-266, repr. as 73

E. K. Waterhouse, "Some Notes on William Young Ottley's Collection of Italian Primitives", ed. Charles Peter Brand, W. Heffer (Cambridge, UK, 1962), pp. 277 and 279 as no. 50

Bernard Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance, A List of the Principal Artists and their Works with an Index of Places: Central and North Italian Schools, Phaidon (London, 1968), p. 216

Burton B. Fredericksen and Federico Zeri, Census of Pre-Nineteenth-Century Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA, 1972), p. 109

Everett Fahy, "Italian Painting Before 1500", Apollo (May 1978), vol. 107, no. 195, pp. 377-388, p. 384, repr. p. 383 as fig. 6

Hayden B.J. Maginnis, "Pietro Lorenzetti: A Chronology", The Art Bulletin (June 1984), vol. 66, no. 2, pp.183-211, pp. 196-197, 200, repr. p. 200 as fig. 22

Miklós Boskovits, "Considerations on Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti", Paragone. Arte. (1986), vol. 37, no. 439, pp. 3-16, pp. 4-5

Kristin A. Mortimer and William G. Klingelhofer, Harvard University Art Museums: A Guide to the Collections, Harvard University Art Museums and Abbeville Press (Cambridge and New York, 1986), no. 162, p. 144, repr.

Carlo Volpe, Pietro Lorenzetti, Electa (Milan, 1989), pp.115, 117, cat. no. 90

Edgar Peters Bowron, European Paintings Before 1900 in the Fogg Art Museum: A Summary Catalogue including Paintings in the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1990)

Keith Christiansen, "Paul Delaroche's Crucifixion by Pietro Lorenzetti", Apollo (February 2003), vol. 157, pp. 8-14

Carl Brandon Strehlke, Italian Paintings 1250-1450 in the John G. Johnson Collection and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia, PA, 2004), p. 214

An Exhibition of Italian Paintings and Drawings, Fogg Art Museum, 03/24/1939 - 04/15/1939

32Q: 2500 Renaissance, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 01/01/2050

Google Art Project

• Straus.7696

  Artist of original: (?) Pietro Lorenzetti

  X-radiograph(s) of "Crucifixion"

  Photographs

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu