The Crucifixion

Master of the Codex of Saint George

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The deep emotional piety shown in these expressive faces and gestures is made more poignant by the weighty drapery folds modeled in sharply contrasting highlights and shadows, by the vivid coloring, and by the taut composition. The unidentified artist has been linked to a miniature painter who illuminated several manuscripts, including a life of Saint George in the Vatican, for cardinal Stefaneschi, resident at the papal court in Avignon from 1309–1341, and a missal, probably for the same patron, in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York. Also in the Museum's collection is a companion panel, The Lamentation. Both were part of a larger ensemble of hinged panels, two others of which are missing and two of which are preserved in Florence.

Medieval Art and The Cloisters

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Museum's collection of medieval and Byzantine art is among the most comprehensive in the world. Displayed in both The Met Fifth Avenue and in the Museum's branch in northern Manhattan, The Met Cloisters, the collection encompasses the art of the Mediterranean and Europe from the fall of Rome in the fourth century to the beginning of the Renaissance in the early sixteenth century. It also includes pre-medieval European works of art created during the Bronze Age and early Iron Age.

Metropolitan Museum of Art