Master of the Franciscan Crucifixes
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The Master of the Franciscan Crucifixes is the notname given to an Italian painter active in the 1260s and 1270s. The notname is based on a painted crucifix now in the Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi, which was found to be connected stylistically with two painted crucifixes in Bologna and fragments of two paintings in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The artist is presumed to have been Umbrian by origin and training.[1]
In 1922, the Swedish art historian Osvald Sirén coined the name for the painter, presumably Umbrian, by attributing common authorship of a painted crucifix now in the Treasury of the Basilica of San Francesco in Assisi, two paintings of the same subject in Bologna, and the fragments The Mourning Madonna and The Mourning Saint John now at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC.[2]
In 1929, Evelyn Sandberg-Vavalà attributed to the same artist the crucifix in the church of Santa Maria in Borgo in Bologna (now at the Pinacoteca Nazionale of Bologna) as well as three painted crucifixes in the Fornari collection at Fabriano,[3] the Pinacoteca of Faenza and the Museo Civico (now Collezioni Comunali d’Arte) in Bologna. Further works have been attributed to the artist but there is no unanimity among art historians about certain attributions.
