National Gallery of Art

The Crucifixion is enacted in front of the crenellated wall of the city of Jerusalem. The cross is flanked above by four fluttering angels, three of whom collect the blood that flows from the wounds in Christ’s hands and side. To the left of the Cross, the Holy Women, a compact group, support the swooning Mary, mother of Jesus. Mary Magdalene kneels at the foot of the Cross, caressing Christ’s feet with her hands. To the right of the Cross stand Saint John the Evangelist, in profile, and a group of soldiers with the centurion in the middle, distinguished by a halo, who recognizes the Son of God in Jesus.[1]  [1]
The artist follows the iconography developed after the iconoclastic period in Middle Byzantine art; it is here that such motifs as the mourning angels, the centurion (cf. Matthew 27:54), the walls of Jerusalem in the background, and the skull of Adam hidden in a fissure of the rock of Golgotha below the Cross appear for the first time; cf. Marcus Mrass, “Kreuzigung Christi,” in Reallexikon zur byzantinischen Kunst, ed. Klaus Wessel, 7 vols. (Stuttgart, 1995), 5:312–350. Motifs of Western origin, on the other hand, also are present in the painting: Mary Magdalene embracing the Cross, or the swooning Madonna; cf. Evelyn Sandberg-­Vavalà, La croce dipinta italiana e l’iconografia della Passione (Verona, 1929), 123–124, 148–151. On the haloed centurion, a widespread motif in Italian fourteenth-century painting, cf. Gertrud Schiller, Ikonographie der christlichen Kunst, 6 vols. (Gütersloh, 1966–1990), 2:166–167.  The painting’s small size, arched shape, and composition suggest that it originally belonged to a portable altarpieceAltarpiece
 An image-bearing structure set on the rear part of the altar, abutting the back of the altarblock, or set behind the altar in such a way as to be visually joined with the altar when viewed from a distance. It is also sometimes called a retable, following the medieval term retrotabulum. The altarpiece was never officially prescribed by the Church, but it did perform a prescribed function alternatively carried out by a simple inscription on the altarblock: to declare to which saint or mystery the altar was dedicated. In fact, the altarpiece did more than merely identify the altar; its form and content evoked the mystery or personage whose cult was celebrated at the altar. This original and lasting function influenced the many forms taken by the altarpiece throughout its history. —Alexander Nagel, Grove Art © Oxford University Press, of which it formed the central panel’s upper tier [fig. 1]   [fig. 1] Reconstruction of a portable triptych by Paolo Veneziano. Panel A: Saint Christopher (reverse of panel B). Panel B: a. Angel of the Annunciation (fig. 5); b. Saint Michael Archangel (fig. 3); c. Saint John the Baptist (fig. 3); d. Saint George (fig. 3); e. Saint Francis (fig. 3). Panel C: a. The Crucifixion; b. Madonna and Child (fig. 6). Panel D: a. Virgin Annunciate (fig. 5); b. The Ecstasy of Saint Mary Magdalene (fig. 3); c. Saint Barbara (fig. 3); d. Saint Anthony Abbot (fig. 3). Panel E: Saint Blaise (reverse of panel D).[2]  [2]
The relatively small dimensions of the panel and its particular format, favoring width at the expense of height, preclude the hypothesis that it formed the central gable of a polyptych. The alternative suggestion, that it might have been part of the predella of an altarpiece, would seem to be discounted by the vertical graining of the wood. For small portable triptychs in which the Crucifixion appears above the image of the Madonna and Child, cf. Rodolfo Pallucchini, ed., La pittura veneziana del Trecento (Venice, 1964), fig. 74, 202, 366, 524.  The hypothesis was first advanced by Evelyn Sandberg-­Vavalà (originally drafted 1939, published 1969), who based it on stylistic, compositional, and iconographicIconography, or Iconology
 Terms that refer broadly to the study of subjects and themes in works of art. Iconology, which is based on the results of iconography, is the more wide-ranging and comprehensive. One of the principal concerns of iconography is the discovery of symbolic and allegorical meanings in a work of art. —Willem F. Lash, Grove Art © Oxford University Press affinities between a small triptychTriptych
 A picture consisting of three parts. The term denotes both the object itself and its compositional form. As an object, the triptych may vary in size and material, but usually consists of a central panel flanked by wings (or shutters), which may be hinged; as a compositional form it is a tripartite structure, often with an emphasized central element. Although its imagery was, until the 19th century at least, predominantly religious, the object as such was not tied to a specific function. —Victor M. Schmidt, Grove Art © Oxford University Press now in the Galleria Nazionale of Parma [fig. 2]   [fig. 2] Paolo Veneziano, Portable Triptych, c. 1335, tempera on panel, Galleria Nazionale, Parma and a series of small panels now in the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts [fig. 3]   [fig. 3] Paolo Veneziano, Panels from the Wings of a Triptych, c. 1340/1345, tempera on panel, Worcester Art Museum (MA), Museum Purchase, 1927.19. Image © Worcester Art Museum. Sandberg-­Vavalà recognized the latter as fragments of the shutters of a triptych [fig. 4]   [fig. 4] Saints Christopher and Blaise on the reverse of the lateral panels of Paolo Veneziano, Portable Triptych, c. 1335, tempera on panel, Galleria Nazionale, Parma very similar to the one now in Parma.[3]  [3]
The article by Evelyn Sandberg-­Vavalà (in English) was prepared for the Worcester Art Museum Bulletin in 1939 but long remained unpublished. It was finally printed in an Italian translation by Michelangelo Muraro, as Evelyn Sandberg-­Vavalà, “Maestro Paolo Veneziano: Suoi dipinti in America e altrove,” in Paolo da Venezia (Milan, 1969), 99–101. Sandberg-­Vavalà was the first to point out the close resemblances between the panel then in the Kress Collection and the corresponding scene in the small triptych of the Galleria Nazionale in Parma (no. 438), for which see Rosa D’Amico, in Galleria Nazionale di Parma, vol. 1, Catalogo delle opere dall’antico al Cinquecento, ed. Lucia Fornari Schianchi (Milan, 1997), 44–46. More especially, she noted the virtual identity in iconography and composition between this triptych and a very similar altarpiece of which the fragments now in the Worcester Art Museum originally formed part (no. 1927.19); see Martin Davies, “Italian School,” in European Paintings in the Collection of the Worcester Art Museum, vol. 1, Text, ed. Worcester Art Museum (Worcester, MA, 1974), 412–417. She concluded that the Crucifixion now in the National Gallery of Art originally belonged to the same ensemble.  Thus, as in the example at Parma, the dismantled triptych would have represented on the exterior Saints Christopher and Blaise ([fig. 1]   [fig. 1] Reconstruction of a portable triptych by Paolo Veneziano. Panel A: Saint Christopher (reverse of panel B). Panel B: a. Angel of the Annunciation (fig. 5); b. Saint Michael Archangel (fig. 3); c. Saint John the Baptist (fig. 3); d. Saint George (fig. 3); e. Saint Francis (fig. 3). Panel C: a. The Crucifixion; b. Madonna and Child (fig. 6). Panel D: a. Virgin Annunciate (fig. 5); b. The Ecstasy of Saint Mary Magdalene (fig. 3); c. Saint Barbara (fig. 3); d. Saint Anthony Abbot (fig. 3). Panel E: Saint Blaise (reverse of panel D), panels a and e). When opened, the left shutter would have shown Saints Michael Archangel and John the Baptist at the top, and in the lower register Saints George and Francis; the Ecstasy of Saint Mary Magdalene would have appeared at the top of the right shutter, and below it Saints Barbara and Anthony Abbot (in the Parma triptych, the place of Saint Barbara is taken by Saint Ursula). The Washington Crucifixion therefore may be assumed to have formed part of the centerpiece of a triptych, probably placed, as at Parma, above an image of the Madonna and Child. The measurements of the fragments[4]  [4]
The dimensions of the panels with figures of saints in the Worcester Museum, cut from the shutters of a triptych, vary between 27.7 and 28.3 × 9 and 9.2 cm, while the Ecstasy of Saint Mary Magdalene, the only panel to preserve the entire width of the triptych’s right wing, is 27.7 × 18.1 cm. Therefore, the shutters—without the upper gables, which could (on the analogy of the model in Parma) have been some 20–30 cm high—would have measured c. 56 × 18 cm; see Rodolfo Pallucchini, ed., La pittura veneziana del Trecento (Venice, 1964), pls. 77–78. After various transfers on the Italian art market, where they were recorded at least until 1925, the seven fragments were purchased by the Worcester Museum in 1927 from the dealer Paul Bottenwieser (New York and Berlin). See Martin Davies, “Italian School,” in European Paintings in the Collection of the Worcester Art Museum, vol. 1, Text, ed. Worcester Art Museum (Worcester, MA, 1974), 415–416.  would seem to confirm that the painting in the National Gallery of Art and the fragments in Worcester belonged to the same altarpiece. Other scholars later independently proposed the same conjectural reconstruction of the complex.[5]  [5]
Michel Laclotte, De Giotto à Bellini: Les primitifs italiens dans les musées de France (Paris, 1956), 19; Michel Laclotte, “Peintures ita­liennes des XIVe et XVe siècles à l’Orangerie,” Arte veneta 10 (1956): 226; Fern Rusk Shapley, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XIII–XV Century (London, 1966), 8, fig. 10; Miche­langelo Muraro, Paolo da Venezia (Milan, 1969), 156–158. Michelangelo Muraro (1969, 125) accepted the hypothesis but believed the Madonna now in Avignon to be later in date and not part of the complex. Michel Laclotte and Elisabeth Mognetti, Avignon, Musée du Petit Palais: Peinture italienne, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1976), no. 202; and Robert Gibbs, “Paolo Veneziano,” in The Dictionary of Art, ed. Jane Turner, 34 vols. (New York, 1996), 24:32, also accepted the reconstruction.  It was further developed by the suggestion that it could be completed with the triangular gable panels depicting the Angel of the Annunciation and the Virgin Annunciate now in the J. Paul Getty Museum at Los Angeles [fig. 5]   [fig. 5] Paolo Veneziano, The Annunciation, c. 1340/1345, tempera on panel, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Image courtesy of the Getty's Open Content Program,[6]  [6]
No. 87.PB.117; 22.5 × 13.5 each; see David Jaffé, Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue of the Collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum (Malibu, 1997), 129. The two fragments come from the Florentine collection of Charles Loeser (1864–1928). Joanna R. Dunn of the National Gallery of Art’s conservation department, who has examined the two panels at my request, thinks they probably were cut down along the diagonal sides as well as on the acute-angle corners. She estimates that their original width might have been as much as 18 cm.  and with the Madonna and Child now in the Musée du Petit Palais at Avignon [fig. 6]   [fig. 6] Paolo Veneziano, Madonna and Child, c. 1340/1345, tempera on panel, Musée du Petit Palais, Avignon. Image © RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY. Photographer: Rene-Gabrile Ojeda,[7]  [7]
No. 20194; 44 × 40 cm. See Michel Laclotte and Esther Moench, Peinture italienne: Musée du Petit Palais, Avignon (Paris, 2005), no. 224. The painting, first recorded in the famous Roman collection of Giampiero Campana (1808–1880) in the mid-nineteenth century, was sold in 1862, together with the entire Campana collection, to the Musée Napoléon III in Paris. It was subsequently placed on loan in the museum in Montargis, where it remained on display for almost a century before being transferred to the Musée du Petit Pa­lais in Avignon. Since the Madonna was catalogued as a work of Otta­viano da Faenza in the Campana collection, it may be, or has been, inferred that it was originally intended for a patron in Emilia-­Romagna. Cf. Roberto Longhi, Viatico per cinque secoli di pittura veneziana (Florence, 1946), 44–45.  proposed as the lower register of the central panel of which our Crucifixion formed the upper part. Not all authorities have found these proposals convincing, and some have rejected them,[8]  [8]
Rodolfo Pallucchini (1956) doubted the reconstruction on chronological grounds, though subsequently (1964) he did not discount the possibility that the Crucifixion discussed here and the Madonna now in Avignon might have belonged to the same complex. Muraro, as we have seen, rejected this hypothesis. According to Martin Davies (1974), the various conjectural reconstructions of the complex “are unproved.” According to Filippo Pedrocco (2003), two circumstances would have precluded the reconstruction: the differences (though minimal) in measurements and the chronological disparities in style. See Rodolfo Pallucchini, “Nota per Paolo Veneziano,” in Scritti di storia dell’arte in onore di Lionello Venturi, 2 vols. (Rome, 1956), 1:135; Rodolfo Pallucchini, ed., La pittura veneziana del Trecento (Venice, 1964), 32; Michelangelo Muraro, Paolo da Venezia (Milan, 1969), 125; Martin Davies, “Italian School,” in European Paintings in the Collection of the Worcester Art Museum, vol. 1, Text, ed. Worcester Art Museum (Worcester, MA, 1974), 415; Filippo Pedrocco, Paolo Veneziano (Milan and Venice, 2003), 126, 131 n. 79.  but at least the common origin of the panels now in Avignon, Washington, and Worcester seems quite plausible.[9]  [9]
For the problems of chronology, see below. With regard to the tiny disparity of 1.1 cm between the present width of the panels in Washington and Avignon, it should be borne in mind that the latter only partially retains its engaged frame; originally it must have been wider. The cropping of the panels now in Worcester is far more considerable, but not even their measurements contradict, in my view, the proposed reconstruction. It is difficult, however, to incorporate the gable panels in Los Angeles in the reconstruction.

As for the hand that painted the panel in Washington, apart from the first tentative attributions to Nicoletto Semitecolo [10]  [10]
See Roger Fry, “Exhibition of Pictures and the Early Venetian School at the Burlington Fine Arts Club,” The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 21 (1912): 47, pl. 2, and Provenance note 1.  and to Lorenzo Veneziano (an artist who belonged to a younger generation and was probably a disciple of Paolo Veneziano, but someone to whom early twentieth-century art historians frequently attributed Paolo’s paintings) [11]  [11]
In a handwritten expertise on the back of a photograph of the painting, Raimond van Marle declared, “No doubt it is a work of Lorenzo Veneziano.” Other expert opinions supporting an attribution of Paolo Veneziano were sent to Samuel H. Kress by Bernard Berenson, Giuseppe Fiocco, Roberto Longhi, F. Mason Perkins, Wilhelm Suida, and Adolfo Venturi. Presumably written at the same time as van Marle’s, most bear the date 1934; copies in NGA curatorial files.  made during the time when it was still on the art market, Paolo’s authorship is now almost universally recognized.[12]  [12]
The only dissenting voice was that of Edoardo Arslan (1956), who thought that the Crucifixion was a work by an assistant of Paolo’s. Edoardo Arslan, “Una nuova Madonna di Paolo Veneto,” Commentari 7 (1956): 21 n. 8.  Uncertainties concern not so much the painting’s attribution as its chronological position in Paolo’s oeuvre. This is variously assessed depending on the chronological sequence of the master’s paintings proposed in the literature. Roberto Longhi, followed by many, argued for an execution toward the middle of the fourteenth century,[13]  [13]
Roberto Longhi, Viatico per cinque secoli di pittura veneziana (Florence, 1946), 45, based his proposal on the affinities he identified between the work and polyptych no. 21 of the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice—although the more recent literature no longer accepts the late dating of this polyptych—and on presumed reflections in the paintings of Vitale da Bologna in his phase around 1350. Maria Walcher Casotti, Il Trittico di S. Chiara di Trieste e l’orientamento paleologo nell’arte di Paolo Veneziano (Trieste, 1961), 19; Michelangelo Muraro, Paolo da Venezia (Milan, 1969), 156; Michel Laclotte and Elisabeth Mognetti, Avignon, Musée du Petit Palais: Peinture italienne, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1976), no. 202; Hanna Kiel, “Das Polyptychon von Paolo und Giovanni Veneziano in Sanseverino Marche,” Pantheon 35 (1977): 107, 108 n. 8; Robert Gibbs, “Paolo Veneziano,” in The Dictionary of Art, ed. Jane Turner, 34 vols. (New York, 1996), 24:32; Cristina Guar­nieri, “Per la restituzione di due croci perdute di Paolo Veneziano: Il leone marciano del Museo Correr e i dolenti della Galleria Sabauda,” in Medioevo adriatico: Circolazione di modelli, opere, maestri, ed. Giovanna Valenzano and Federica Toniolo (Rome, 2010), 140, 152, have all endorsed Longhi’s dating.  but other art historians have preferred an earlier dating, proposing the 1340s,[14]  [14]
According to Francesca Flores D’Arcais (1994), the Washington Crucifixion was “forse vicina alla Pala marciana” (perhaps close to the altarpiece in San Marco), i.e., the Pala feriale executed in 1343–1345. Michel Laclotte and Esther Moench (2005) suggested the decade c. 1340–1350 as the most plausible period for the execution of the painting. Andrea De Marchi (2005) preferred a slightly later dating, towards the end of the 1340s. See Francesca Flores d’Arcais, “La pittura,” in Storia di Venezia: Temi; L’Arte, ed. Rodolfo Pallucchini, 2 vols. (Rome, 1994), 1:259; Michel Laclotte and Esther Moench, Peinture italienne: Musée du Petit Palais, Avignon (Paris, 2005), 172; Andrea De Marchi, “Polyptyques vénitiens: Anamnèse d’une identité méconnue,” in Autour de Lorenzo Veneziano: Fragments de polyptyques vénitiens du XIVe siècle, ed. Andrea De Marchi (Cinisello Balsamo, Milan, 2005), 19, 20.  the years around 1340,[15]  [15]
Also supporting the dating c. 1340 given in NGA 1965 and NGA 1985 were Frankfurter 1944, Shapley 1966 and 1979, and Mori 2002. See National Gallery of Art, Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture (Washington, DC, 1965), 99; National Gallery of Art, European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue (Washington, DC, 1985), 299; Alfred M. Frankfurter, The Kress Collection in the National Gallery (New York, 1944), 71, 74; Fern Rusk Shapley, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XIII–XV Century (London, 1966), 8, fig. 10; Fern Rusk Shapley, Catalogue of the Italian Paintings, 2 vols. (Washington, DC, 1979), 1:354–355; Francesco Mori, “Paolo Veneziano,” in La pittura in Europa: Il dizionario dei pittori, ed. Carlo Pirovano, 3 vols. (Milan, 2002), 3:676–677.  the fourth,[16]  [16]
The work was dated between 1330 and 1340 by Laclotte in his first publication on the painting: Michel Laclotte, De Giotto à Bellini: Les primitifs italiens dans les musées de France (Paris, 1956), 19; and by Grgo Gamulin, “Un crocefisso di Maestro Paolo e di altri due del Trecento,” Arte veneta 19 (1965): 37; Francesca Flores d’Arcais, “Venezia,” in La Pittura nel Veneto: Il Trecento, ed. Mauro Lucco, 2 vols. (Milan, 1992), 1:30; Francesca Flores d’Arcais, “Paolo Veneziano,” in Enciclopedia dell’arte medievale, 12 vols. (Rome, 1998), 9:158; Francesca Flores d’Arcais, “Paolo Veneziano e la pittura del Trecento in Adriatico,” in Il Trecento adriatico: Paolo Veneziano e la pittura tra Oriente e Occidente, ed. Francesca Flores d’Arcais and Giovanni Gentili (Cinisello Balsamo, Milan, 2002), 22; Giorgio Fossaluzza, ed., Da Paolo Veneziano a Canova: Capolavori dei musei veneti restaurati dalla Regione del Veneto 1984–2000 (Venice, 2000), 43; Angelo Loda, in Il Trecento adriatico: Paolo Veneziano e la pittura tra Oriente e Occidente, ed. Francesca Flores d’Arcais and Giovanni Gentili (Cinisello Balsamo, Milan, 2002), 148; and Filippo Pedrocco, Paolo Veneziano (Milan and Venice, 2003), 154. In another publication, even Andrea De Marchi (2005) seemed to accept the proposal. See Andrea De Marchi, in Splendeurs de la peinture italiane, 1250–1510 (Paris, 2005), 32, 37.  or even the third decade.[17]  [17]
Clara Santini, “Un episodio della pittura veneziana di primo Trecento: Il ‘Maestro dell’Incoro­nazione della Vergine di Washington,’” Il Santo 37 (1997): 144, but perhaps only by an involuntary lapsus, meaning instead to indicate the 1330s.  In the absence of secure points of reference, it may be assumed that the panel in the National Gallery of Art should precede the polyptych with the Crucifixion and saints now in the Museum of the Cathedral of Rab, or the painted cross in the church of Saint Dominic at Dubrovnik (both in Croatia), works generally and convincingly dated after the mid-fourteenth century.[18]  [18]
The altarpiece in Rab (Arbe) representing the Crucifixion flanked by six saints was thought to belong to the sixth decade by Rodolfo Pallucchini, ed., La pittura veneziana del Trecento (Venice, 1964), 50, 59; Michelangelo Muraro, Paolo da Venezia (Milan, 1969), 103; and Igor Fisković, in Il Trecento adriatico: Paolo Veneziano e la pittura tra Oriente e Occidente, ed. Francesca Flores d’Arcais and Giovanni Gentili (Cinisello Balsamo, Milan, 2002), 164. Filippo Pedrocco, Paolo Veneziano (Milan and Venice, 2003), 190–191, on the other hand, proposed a slightly earlier dating, to around 1350. For the crucifix and the figures of mourners in Dubrovnik, cf. Grgo Gamulin, “Alcune proposte per Maestro Paolo,” Emporium 139 (1964): 154; Rodolfo Pallucchini, “Considerazioni sulla mostra ‘Paolo Veneziano e la sua cerchia’ di Zagabria,” Arte veneta 21 (1967): 261; Filippo Pedrocco, Paolo Veneziano (Milan and Venice, 2003), 126–127.  In their conspicuous elongation of the figures’ proportions, their more realistic treatment of the anatomy of the body of Christ, their measured language of gesture and less dynamic linear rhythms, these works have undeniable affinities with paintings securely dated to the artist’s last creative phase. On the other hand, a terminus post quem for our painting can be deduced from the Crucifixion in one of the panels of polyptych no. 21 in the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice, a work that the more recent literature tends to place within or not long after the fourth decade of the fourteenth century. With its more animated and crowded composition and its more schematic description of the slender body of Christ, it can undoubtedly be assumed to belong to a phase preceding the Washington version of the subject.[19]  [19]
The polyptych, with a provenance from the Venetian church of Santa Chiara, was considered until not many years ago as indicative of Paolo’s presumed return to or reuse of Byzantine figurative models in the final phase of his career. More recently, Andrea De Marchi (1995), followed by Robert Gibbs (1996), proposed its execution, surely more correctly, around 1340. Filippo Pedrocco (2003) went further and pushed back its date to c. 1333–1336. Cf. Andrea De Marchi, “Una tavola nella Narodna Galleria di Ljubljana e una proposta per Marco di Paolo Veneziano,” in Gotika v Sloveniji: Nastajanje kulturnega prostora med Alpami, Panonijo in Jadranom; Akti mednarodnega simpozija, Ljubljana, Narodna galerija, ed. Janez Höfler (Ljubljana, 1995), 243; Robert Gibbs, “Paolo Veneziano,” in The Dictionary of Art, ed. Jane Turner, 34 vols. (New York, 1996), 24:32; Filippo Pedrocco, Paolo Veneziano (Milan and Venice, 2003), 150–153.

If, as seems to me plausible, we accept that the painting discussed here belongs to the same complex of which the fragments in the Worcester Museum and the Madonna in Avignon formed part, the scope for comparisons and for formulating more precise chronological parameters is widened. The Saint Francis of the Worcester Museum seems more slender than the corresponding image of the saint in the Museo Civico in Vicenza, dated 1333,[20]  [20]
Inv. A 157; cf. Filippo Pedrocco, Paolo Veneziano (Milan and Venice, 2003), 142–145.  and should be later in date. Conversely, a period of some length must have elapsed between the figure of the Baptist in the Worcester Museum and that in the polyptych in the church of San Martino at Chioggia in 1349: there, the Baptist, a very tall, aristocratic personage who turns with timorous discretion to the Christ child on his mother’s knee in the central panel, reveals characteristics rather different from those of the Worcester Baptist.[21]  [21]
Filippo Pedrocco, Paolo Veneziano (Milan and Venice, 2003), 180–183. The fragmentary inscription, still legible on the panel, also contains a date, usually interpreted as 1349.  The slight hanchement of the Worcester Saint George, holding his lance between his fingers with inimitable nonchalance, seems to repeat in a very similar way, though perhaps with an even more studied quest for elegance, the pose of another warrior saint, the Saint Theodore in the Pala feriale of 1343–1345.[22]  [22]
Filippo Pedrocco, Paolo Veneziano (Milan and Venice, 2003), 170–173. Commissioned in 1343, the Pala feriale bears not only the signatures of Paolo and of his two sons but also the date 1345.  As for the Madonna in Avignon, the liveliness of the Christ child’s gesture, his arms outspread, and the slender figure of Mary, with her wan face and melancholic gaze, invite comparison with the panel dated 1340 in the Crespi collection in Milan and, even more persuasively, with the Madonna now in the Museo Diocesano in Cesena with a provenance from Carpineta, dated 1347.[23]  [23]
Filippo Pedrocco, Paolo Veneziano (Milan and Venice, 2003), 166–167, 176–177.

To these stylistic observations we may add some comments on the iconography and costumes worn by the figures in the panels. Bearing in mind that iconographic changes may depend on the requirements of particular patrons and that their use as criteria for dating a work of art should be evaluated with a great deal of caution, I do not think it accidental that in the Madonna of Carpineta and in Paolo’s later representations of the same subject Mary is always shown with a dress sumptuously decorated with floriated motifs in gold and that the child, instead of wearing the traditional long tunic, is represented nude (even if draped in a mantle) or is shown wearing a transparent chemise that leaves his legs exposed. This motif, of Byzantine origin, soon spread in Tuscan painting,[24]  [24]
According to Rebecca W. Corrie, the motif alludes to the Crucifixion and to the theme of the Eucharist, but her argument does not seem entirely convincing. Rebecca W. Corrie, “Coppo di Marcovaldo’s Madonna del Bordone and the Meaning of the Bare-­Legged Christ Child in Siena and the East,” Gesta 35 (1996): 43–65.  but it apparently enjoyed less success, or made less rapid headway, in northern Italy. Rare in Venetian paintings of the early fourteenth century, it is still not present in Paolo’s Crespi Madonna (1340), though it appears in his later works and also in the panel of the Madonna in Avignon. The conclusion that the triptych in question might have been executed within the 1340s seems further corroborated by the costume of Saint Barbara in Worcester. Her dress is characterized by a conspicuous manicottolo (a long sleeve whose upper fitted part reaches down to the elbow, where it sharply widens and then hangs down in a loose flap to the mid-thigh).[25]  [25]
On the motif of the manicottolo and its significance as a clue for dating, see the perceptive remarks of Luciano Bellosi (1974), the first to evaluate its importance in art historical terms. He developed his proposals further in later studies. Luciano Bellosi, Buffalmacco e il Trionfo della morte (Turin, 1974), 51–54.  This dernier cri of fourteenth-century court dress, a fashion by no means confined to ladies, appears here in a less evolved form than in the dresses that adorn the Saint Ursula of the polyptych of San Severino Marche (1358) [26]  [26]
Cf. Filippo Pedrocco, Paolo Veneziano (Milan and Venice, 2003), 202–203.  or the Dancing Salome in the mosaic of the baptistery of San Marco (c. 1350),[27]  [27]
Cf. Rodolfo Pallucchini, ed., La pittura veneziana del Trecento (Venice, 1964), 75–78, figs. 244, 247.  but in a far wider (and presumably later) variant than in the elegant dresses of the female saints depicted in the laterals of the triptych of Saint Clare in the Museo Civico of Trieste, executed by Paolo within the third decade.[28]  [28]
Cf. Maria Walcher Casotti, Il Trittico di S. Chiara di Trieste e l’orientamento paleologo nell’arte di Paolo Veneziano (Trieste, 1961); Carla Travi, “Il Maestro del trittico di Santa Chiara: Appunti per la pittura veneta di primo Trecento,” Arte cristiana 80 (1992): 81–96.  From the sum of these observations, it seems possible to deduce that the triptych of which the Washington Crucifixion formed part should date to the early 1340s, soon after the triptych in the Galleria Nazionale in Parma, which it follows in composition and, in large part, iconography.

Miklós Boskovits (1935–2011)

March 21, 2016

Associated Names