The Crucifixion

Master of Saint Veronica

National Gallery of Art

A mostly nude man hangs by his outstretched hands from a wooden cross, and is flanked by two pairs of people in this vertical painting. The cross and four people at its foot fill the composition. All the people have pale skin, and the scene is set in front of a shiny gold background. Blood trickles from a ring of thorns around the man’s head, over chestnut-brown hair. Eyes closed, his face tips to his right, our left, to rest on his shoulder, and his body faces us. His hips are wrapped in a translucent white cloth. Blood drips from the nails piercing his hands and overlapping feet on the T-shaped cross, and from a wound over his right ribs. His head is encircled with a flat, gold, disk-like halo. A plaque at the top of the cross, over his head, reads “INRI.” At the foot of the cross, to our left, a balding man with a long, white beard, wearing a gold brocade tunic under a red cape, kneels with his head tipped back and eyelids lowered. Behind him and to our left, a woman wearing a long lapis-blue robe that covers her head and body stands facing us with her hands crossed across her chest. She holds a piece of white cloth and has tears on her cheeks. She also has a gold halo. Another man kneels to our right of the cross. He wears a white robe and his hair is cut into a ring that encircles his head. He looks up at the cross. Along the right edge of the panel, a person with long blond hair surrounded by a halo stands with fingers interlaced in prayer, looking toward the cross. This person’s robe is rose pink lined with olive green, and it falls over a coral-pink garment beneath. Five tiny angels wearing royal-blue garments flit about, each catching the blood from the man’s hands, side, and feet in golden chalices. The fifth angel flits to our right, mirroring the angel catching blood from the gash on the opposite side. The angels’ wings were punched into the gold background, but are difficult to make out now. The surface of the panel is covered with a network of fine cracks, and some of the red layer under the gold shows through.