Puccio Capanna, Crucifixion, Chapter house, S. Francesco, Assisi, c.1340

Puccio Capanna (Italian, active about 1325-50)

The Crucifixion, about 1330
Tempera and gold leaf on panel, 7 x 5 1/2 in. (17.8 x 14.0 cm.)
Gift of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, 60.17.8

Puccio’s Crucifixion was the central compartment of one wing (panel) of a diptych, or two-paneled devotional work. The other panel, which survives intact in the Vatican Picture Gallery (see illustration), features an enthroned Madonna and Child with attending angels in the central compartment, surrounded by eight smaller compartments depicting female saints and the Annunciation to the Virgin. Puccio was a close follower of the Florentine painter Giotto, and may have been part of the workshop that assisted Giotto on the extensive decoration of the church of Saint Francis at Assisi. The profound emotionalism of this Crucifixion, conveyed through the expressions and poses of the figures and intensified by the shallow, crowded pictorial space, reveals the unmistakable influence of Giotto