The Crucifixion
Giotto di Bondone and workshop (1267-1337) · 14th century, perhaps c. 1328-1332
Christ hangs on the cross at the centre of the panel, and around it gather the figures of the Passion story: the mourning Virgin and her companions, Saint John, Mary Magdalene at the foot of the cross, and the soldiers and onlookers who fill the ground. Instead of the gold background you would expect in a fourteenth century panel there is a landscape, and this is not original: at an early date, perhaps already in the fifteenth century, the gold was scraped off and a landscape painted in its place. Only the figures survive from the first campaign.
The museum attributes the panel to Giotto, suggesting that he designed it and that his workshop executed it during his stay at the court of Naples between thirteen twenty eight and thirteen thirty two. When it appeared at auction at the Hôtel Drouot in Paris in June nineteen ninety nine it was catalogued under the name of the Master of Giovanni Barrile, a painter active in Naples in Giotto's circle, and the Louvre bought it there by pre-emption. Compare it with the great painted cross nearby, another treatment of the same subject by Giotto and his shop.
Did You Know? The gold background was scraped away and replaced with a landscape centuries ago, perhaps as early as the fifteenth century, so the picture you see is partly a later idea of what a Crucifixion should look like.
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