The Crucifixion

Francescuccio Ghissi · c. 1370

Medium

Tempera on panel

Original size

72.7 × 50.3 cm (28 5/8 × 19 3/4 in.); Framed: 82 × 61 × 8.9 cm (32 1/4 × 24 × 3 1/2 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Medieval

Painted at the height of the Italian Gothic tradition, Francescuccio Ghissi's *The Crucifixion* radiates the solemn intensity that defined devotional art in fourteenth-century central Italy. Ghissi was active in the Marche region and worked closely within the orbit of Giovanni da Milano, absorbing the refined draughtsmanship and emotional restraint that set Lombard-influenced Gothic painting apart from its more austere Sienese contemporaries. His figures are elongated and delicate, set against burnished gold grounds that give the composition an almost otherworldly stillness. The tempera medium, applied in careful, layered strokes on panel, allows for a precision of line and subtlety of modelling that few other techniques of the period could match. Ghissi is one of the few painters of his generation documented by name in contracts from the Fabriano region, giving scholars a rare foothold for tracing his hand across a body of work that spans altarpieces, diptychs, and portable devotional panels now scattered across European and American collections. The hand-painted oil reproduction translates Ghissi's tender draughtsmanship and luminous palette into a medium built to last, preserving every nuance of the original's expression and gilded atmosphere for a new setting.