Crucifixion

In 1811 Brera received a gold ground altarpiece from a Franciscan hermitage at Valle Romita, in the Marche, closed a year earlier under Napoleon's suppression of religious houses. What arrived was the centre and the lower panels. The piece that crowned the whole thing was long gone, sold, according to the Marche historian Amico Ricci writing in 1834, to a private buyer many years before. Then in 1991 a small Crucifixion by Gentile da Fabriano surfaced on the English art market, tempera on panel, 60 centimetres high, with an old inscription on the back placing it in the Marche. The museum bought it. Part of the scholarly literature argues that this is the missing cusp of the Valle Romita altarpiece, close to it in date, around 1408, and in handling. That case is not settled, and the panel is catalogued on its own.