Paolo Uccello, The Crucifixion

Mid-1450s
Tempera on wood, gold ground, 18 x 11 in. (45.7 x 27.9 cm.)
Metropolitan Museum of Art
(gift of Lore Heinemann in memory of Rudolf J. Heinemann), 1997.117.9

The central scene is typical of Crucifixions in this period, with Mary and John on the left and right, a Mary Magdalene with flowing blond hair kneeling at the foot of the cross, and angels collecting Jesus' blood in chalices.

According to the museum's label an inscription identifies the small figure kneeling left of the cross as a nun named Felicity, a member of the Brigittine convent of Santa Maria del Paradiso, near Florence. Like Brigittines even today, she wears a small crown with five red dots referencing the five wounds of Christ.

The figure in the left wing is St. Bridget of Sweden, the foundress of the Brigittine order, identified by the flaming candle she holds to her arm and the red cross with the Eucharistic host in the center. On the left wing is a standing Madonna and Child. The upper registers of the two wings portray the Annunciation.

In the right wing the Madonna and Child portrait is a bit more restrained and intimate than in many of this type in the 15th century. The artist keeps the child fully clothed and shows him touching his mother's cheek, the only adaptation of the Byzantine Glykophilousa type that I have encountered in 15th-century Madonnas.

View a detail of St. Bridget, with a brief note.
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the Crucifixion
Read more about images of St. Bridget.
Read more about images of the Madonna and Child.

Photographed at the museum by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.