Attributed to the Master of the Bigallo Crucifixion

Attributed to is how a museum names the likely painter of a work while admitting that the proof is incomplete. Here the name it points to is itself an invention of scholars. The Master of the Bigallo Crucifix is an anonymous Florentine painter of the 13th century, called after a painted cross in the Bigallo, the building on the cathedral square in Florence, and his body of work is a modern reconstruction.

An attribution to a figure like this rests on style alone, on how closely a panel matches that reconstructed group in its drawing, its faces and its gold. With no signature, contract or document to settle the matter, the museum keeps the word attributed in front of the name.