Christ de Pitié

Giovanni Baronzio was the leading painter of the Riminese school in the mid-fourteenth century, part of a distinctive regional tradition that combined Giottesque monumentality with expressive intensity. This Christ de Pitie (Man of Sorrows), now in the Musee du Petit Palais, depicts the devotional image type showing Christ displaying his wounds after the Crucifixion. The Imago Pietatis was one of the most powerful devotional subjects in Gothic art, designed to elicit compassionate meditation on Christ's sacrifice.

Egg tempera on panel with gold ground, displaying Baronzio's characteristic linear expressionism and emotional directness. The figure of Christ is rendered with stark anatomical clarity, the wounds prominently displayed against pale flesh tones, framed by a punched and tooled gold background.