Diptych of the Virgin and Child Enthroned and the Crucifixion
c. 1280
- Medium
- Tempera on panel
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Overall: 37.9 × 59.1 cm (14 15/16 × 23 5/16 in.); Left wing: 38 × 29.5 cm (14 15/16 × 11 5/8 in.); Right wing: 38 × 29.5 cm (14 15/16 × 11 5/8 in.)
- Culture
- Italy
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Credit line
- Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
This diptych, a hinged and portable work used for private devotion, was probably made in the Latin Kingdom established in the Holy Land by the Crusaders. In style, technique, and the use of both Latin and Greek inscriptions, it shows a mixture of Eastern and Western elements. The diptych may have been made by an Italian craftsman, possibly working in the coastal city of Acre, which was the capital of a reduced crusader kingdom in the late 13th century. This type of private devotional work, and related Byzantine models imported back into Western Europe, exerted a powerful influence on later painting in Italy, France, and the Low Countries.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
