Lot 23: BICCI DI LORENZO

THE CRUCIFIXION

overall (including frame): 55 by 22 cm.; 21 3/4 by 8 3/4 in. panel (excluding frame): 47 by 20.1 cm.;18 1/2 by 8 in.

tempera on panel, gold ground, pointed top, in an engaged frame

Marseille, Galerie San-Michèle, Arts du Moyen-Age, 1949, no. 6;
Marseille, Musée Cantini, L'Art du Moyen Age, 1952, no. 5.

Monsieur L.C. Bresset, by 1952 (by whom lent to the exhibition in Marseille; see under Exhibited below).

According to an old inscription on the reverse, this panel was once considered to be Sienese and was formerly ascribed to the Master of the Codex of St. George. The attribution to Bicci di Lorenzo has been endorsed on the basis of photographs by Prof. Miklós Boskovits, to whom we are grateful.

The small oval-shaped area above the cross probably marks the site of where a small gem or relief was originally affixed, as the four nails either side of it also suggest.