Christ on the Cross [reverse]

Andrea di Bartolo, a Sienese painter active in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries and son of the prominent Bartolo di Fredi, painted this Christ on the Cross around 1380. This panel is the reverse of a processional cross, an object carried through the streets during religious processions and feast days, making it visible to the public from both sides. Now at the National Gallery of Art, it documents the liturgical function of Gothic painting beyond static altarpieces.

Painted in egg tempera on the reverse of a shaped wooden panel, this Crucifixion employs the restrained palette and expressive linearism of late Sienese Gothic painting. The figure of Christ is rendered with careful anatomical observation within the conventions of the cross format, with terminal roundels likely containing mourning figures.