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file Bob Jones

TEXT OF PURCHASE ANNOUNCEMENT in THE ART QUARTERLY (Summer 1957 issue):

The VANNUCCIO CRUCIFIX recently acquired by Bob Jones University was undoubtedly commissioned for a church in or near Siena, where it was hung high in the Gothic arch separating the chancel from the nave of the church or placed atop of the rood screen. 

It is known to have been in the collection of the Davanzati family and hung in their place in Florence. It was later in the American collection of Richard Mortimer. It was published by Dr. Richard Offner in Art In America in April 1932, and was reproduced on the cover of that issue. 

In this article Dr. Offner points out the similarities between the figure of Christ in this large painted CRUCIFIXION and another representation of the subject on a small panel formerly in the Berlin Museum. Dr. Offner said "the realism is heightened by the scale, by an overstatement of certain parts designed to give the figure a more knotted and tormented appearance, so that the emaciation of the body, the convulsed clawlike fingers, the serpentine strands of the hair, the darkening shadows of the mask, the gushing wounds, attain a kind of Grünelwaldian gruesomeness". 

Dr. W. R. Valentiner calls it an "exceptionally fine example of the master" and Dr. William Suida classifies it as "one of the very interesting pieces of Sienese painting of that period". Dr. Federico Zeri calls attention to the fact that the crucifixion has been published not only by Offner but by Brandi, also; and Dr. Zeri classifies it as the most important work by this very rare Sienese fourteenth century artist. 

The CRUCIFIX is 6' 3-1/2 inches high by 5' 3-1/2'' wide. The Virgin and St. John are in the terminals and Mary Magdalena in the base. It was painted about 1370.
 
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Recently acquired by the Bob Jones University Museum
Greenville, South Carolina
from Jacques Seligmann & Co., Inc. New York 

Riley Tim