Christ on the Cross between the Virgin and Saint John

Bartolomeo Bulgarini's Christ on the Cross between the Virgin and Saint John, now in the Musée de Tessé in Le Mans, depicts the fundamental scene of the Crucifixion with its two primary witnesses. This subject formed the devotional core of countless Italian Gothic altarpieces and painted crosses, serving as a focus for meditation on Christ's sacrifice. Bulgarini's treatment of this quintessential Christian subject carries forward the emotional intensity that Pietro Lorenzetti had brought to Sienese Passion imagery in the earlier fourteenth century.

The tempera-on-panel Crucifixion employs gold ground with the tooled and punched decorative work characteristic of Sienese workshop practice. Bulgarini's figures display the expressive pathos and volumetric modeling inherited from Pietro Lorenzetti, with carefully rendered anatomical detail in the corpus of Christ.