Pesellino

Pesellino, Francesco
Francesco di Stefano

Florentine, c. 1422 - 1457

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A man wearing a dark ring of thorns around his head hangs from a wooden cross as two kneeling people look on in this vertical painting. All the people have pale skin with a greenish cast, and all three have gold, disk-like halos. On the cross, Jesus’s head tips forward, his gaze downcast. Bright red blood runs down the man’s arms from where his palms are nailed to the cross. Blood also pours from a gash over his right ribs, to our left, and from his feet, which overlap and are nailed to the cross. He is nude except for a transparent white cloth tied across his hips. Behind his shoulder-length blond hair and goatee, a scarlet-red cross is embedded in his halo. A red scroll above the across has the letters, “INRI,” and above the scroll, a long-necked, white bird set within a dark green nest pecks at its own chest, wings outstretched. Both of the men kneeling at the foot of the cross look up at Jesus. Both are barefoot and have bald heads with a fringe of hair. The man to our left wears a deep V-necked, ivory-white tunic that pools on the ground. His arms cross over his torso and he holds a string of beads in his left hand and a rock in the other. There is a red mark on his chest. The man to our right wears a long, brown hooded cloak. Blood trickles from the base of the cross onto the rose-pink, chisel-cut ground, to where a skull and two bones sit between the men. The land steeply rises to a jagged, barren pink mountain to our right, and dips down to a field with rows of dark green plants and a few trees to our left. Buildings cluster behind a mauve-pink city wall in the distance, and one of the buildings has a gold dome. The sky deepens from ice blue along the horizon to teal along a band of clouds that stretch behind Jesus’s torso. Charcoal-gray clouds fill in the space above the cross. Lines flicker off of a flaming, ruby-red orb in the sky to our left and a black orb hangs to our right.
Pesellino, The Crucifixion with Saint Jerome and Saint Francis, c. 1445/1450, tempera on poplar panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1939.1.109

The Crucifixion with Saint Jerome and Saint Francis

Pesellino · c. 1445/1450 · tempera on poplar panel ·  Accession ID  1939.1.109

Shown from the lap up, a young woman sits behind the back corner of a gray, stone platform, supporting a small naked baby boy standing on the ledge in this vertical painting. Both have pale, almost golden skin tones and blond hair. The woman sits with her body angled to our right, and she tilts her head down toward the baby, looking past him with hooded, brown eyes. Her wavy hair is tied back and held with a thin red band above her forehead. A white veil over the crown of her head drapes down the back of her neck and wraps loosely around her shoulders. She wears a flowing, wide-sleeved robe of cobalt blue trimmed with a band of gold embroidery in designs resembling calligraphic letters. The navy-blue lining, seen at the sleeves and collar, is densely flecked with gold dots. The hems of her rose-pink dress, visible at her forearms and chest, are edged with gold embroidery and white lace. The baby stands on the ledge in front of the woman, slightly to our right. Her right hand, on our left, rests on the baby’s right shoulder with one finger brushing his cheek, while her other hand supports his other side at his waist. The child stands on pudgy legs with his left foot forward, hips sharply tilted down toward his left hip. His body faces us, but his brown eyes look over and past our left shoulder, into the distance. He has short curly hair, a round face and cheeks, and delicate facial features. His hands are raised to his chest so the thumb of his right hand touches the palm of his left. Flat, plate-like golden halos seem to rest atop both of their heads. Each halo has a black rim and is decorated with rings of dots. Filling the background immediately behind them, crisscrossing branches of a thorny rosebush fills the panel. More than two dozen white, pink, and red roses are shown in all stages, from bud to bloom, and the branches are lined with jagged-edged, deep green leaves. The roses are set against a cloudless sky that fades from powder blue along the top to nearly white along the bottom.
Anonymous Artist, Madonna and Child, c. 1470, tempera on poplar panel, Widener Collection, 1942.9.50

Madonna and Child

Anonymous Artist · c. 1470 · tempera on poplar panel ·  Accession ID  1942.9.50

Bibliography

1901

  • Weisbach, Werner. Francesco Pesellino und die Romantik der Frührenaissance. Berlin, 1901.

1907

  • Gronau, Georg. In Thieme-Becker, 26(1932): 463-464.

1932

  • Toesca, Pietro. "Francesco Pesellino miniatore." Dedalo 12 (1932): 85-90.

1934

  • Scharf, Alfred. "Zur Kunst des Francesco Pesellino." Pantheon 14 (1934): 211-221.

1968

  • Degenhart, Bernhard, and Annegritt Schmitt. Corpus der italienischen Zeichungen, 1300-1450. 2 vols. in 14+ parts. Berlin, 1968: part 1, 2:527-540.

1990

  • Angelini, Alessandro. "Francesco Pesellino." In Pittura di luce. Giovanni di Francesco e l'arte fiorentina di metà Quattrocento. Ed. Luciano Bellosi. Exh. cat., Casa Buonarroti, Florence. Milan, 1990: 125-133.

1998

  • Uguccioni, Alessandra. Salomone e la regina di Saba: La pittura di cassone a Ferrara presenze nei musei americani. Ferrara, 1988.

2003

  • Boskovits, Miklós, and David Alan Brown, et al. Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 2003: 568-569.