![Christ on the Cross [reverse]](https://api.nga.gov/iiif/ba6cc0b7-8f4a-481d-9da5-f6347181902c/full/1200,/0/default.jpg)
Provenance
Private collection, Italy, c. 1920.[1] (Alessandro Contini, Rome [from 1930, Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi]); sold October 1927 to Samuel H. Kress [1863-1955], New York;[2] transferred 1929 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York; gift 1939 to NGA.
[1] In his expertise dated 8 August 1934, commissioned from him by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation (copy in the NGA curatorial files), F. Mason Perkins states that he had seen the painting for the first time in an Italian private collection fifteen years earlier.
[2] The bill of sale for sculpture, maiolica, furniture, antique velvet, and several paintings, including a "Madonna and Child by Lippo Memmi...given to Donato Martini by some experts," is dated 5 October 1927 (copy in NGA curatorial files).
Accession Number
1939.1.20.b
Medium
tempera on panel
Dimensions
painted surface: 30 × 18.6 cm (11 13/16 × 7 5/16 in.) | overall: 30 × 18.6 × 0.8 cm (11 13/16 × 7 5/16 × 5/16 in.) | framed: 52.7 x 34.3 x 7.9 cm (20 3/4 x 13 1/2 x 3 1/8 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Samuel H. Kress Collection
Tags
Painting Medieval (500–1399) Tempera Panel Painting Italian
Background & Context
Background Story
Andrea di Bartolo (active c. 1389-1428) was a Sienese painter of the late 14th and early 15th centuries, son of the painter Bartolo di Fredi and inheritier of the Sienese decorative tradition that combined Gothic elegance with narrative clarity. Christ on the Cross is painted on the reverse of a double-sided panel—a format that was common in early Italian altarpieces, where the front displayed the main devotional image and the back showed a subsidiary subject that was visible when the altarpiece was carried in procession. The c. 1380-90 date makes this a work from the transition between the Sienese Gothic tradition and the early Renaissance innovations that would transform Italian painting in the following decades.
Cultural Impact
Double-sided altarpiece panels are among the most important documents in the history of early Italian painting because they preserve both the main devotional image and the subsidiary subject that was visible during processions. Christ on the Cross on the reverse demonstrates the Sienese tradition of rendering subsidiary subjects with the same decorative elegance and narrative clarity as the main image, ensuring that every surface of the altarpiece—even the one visible only during processions—met the high standards of Sienese craftsmanship.
Why It Matters
Christ on the Cross [reverse] is the Sienese Gothic tradition extended to every surface of the altarpiece: even the reverse side, visible only during processions, rendered with the same decorative elegance and narrative clarity as the front. The double-sided format preserves a devotional practice that has largely disappeared, making this panel a document of how early Italian altarpieces functioned in their original liturgical context.
![Madonna of Humility, The Blessing Christ, Two Angels, and a Donor [obverse]](https://api.nga.gov/iiif/f38ca59b-b629-4268-bf64-f5d089c8cf06/full/400,/0/default.jpg)
