Crucifixion - Venetian workshop, first half of the 16th century

Embossed leather with traces of gilding on a wood core, 51 x 37.5 cm

It is possible that this ancona was intended for private and domestic devotion. It is a pastiche, or rather an assembly of different and originally autonomous models. The matrix used to imprint the Calvary leather has a certain origin, and of great prestige. It was in fact certainly created in Byzantium, most likely by a workshop active at the imperial court between 1050 and 1190. This is demonstrated by a paten in gilded silver preserved in the Museum of the Treasury of the Halberstadt Cathedral, which sports a Crucifixion completely identical to the our. The provenance of this latter work is documented: on 16 August 1205 Konrad von Krosig, bishop of Halberstadt, returned to his bishopric after having participated in the Fourth Crusade. Among the various objects that he brought back from the East, there was also the paten now exhibited in the Museum of the Treasury of the Cathedral. The soldiers featured in three groups all around the Calvary scene reveal instead a more modern vivacity. They might have been derived from engravings such as the Conversion of St Paul by Francesco Salviati (1545), an extremely popular piece which was reproduced in many exemplars and was also copied is paintings.

Comparative literature: Z. Murat, Leather Manufacturing and Circulating models in the Middle Ages: from a Byzantine Patena in Halberstadt to a Veneto-Cretan Icon in Ljubljana, “Zbornik za umetnostno zgodovino”, N.S., XLVII, 2011, pp. 75-97; Z. Murat 2016, A Masterpiece by a Venetian Atelier. A Leather Liturgical Dish, Milano.