The Crucifixion With Virgin, St John And Magdalen

Ambrogio Bergognone painted this Crucifixion with the Virgin, Saint John, and Magdalen around 1496. As the leading Lombard painter associated with the Certosa di Pavia, Bergognone's devotional works are characterized by quiet contemplation and gentle piety. The Certosa commission represented his most important body of work, and its meditative quality permeated all his religious painting. This work belongs to the High Renaissance, when the innovations of the preceding century were synthesized into works of monumental clarity and ideal beauty.

Oil on panel with Bergognone's characteristic soft tonality and restrained emotional expression. The Crucifixion scene is rendered with the contemplative calm that reflects Carthusian meditative spirituality.