Crucifixión con santa María Magdalena

Signorelli painted this in tempera on canvas around 1502, in the same years he was covering the walls of Orvieto cathedral with his crowded scenes of the end of the world. Cloth was cheaper and lighter than a wooden panel and easy to carry, so pictures like this were often made for confraternities. Mary Magdalene kneels and throws her arms around the foot of the cross, her red cloak spread on the ground, while behind her a wide, clear landscape rolls back to distant hills. The feeling is carried in her body more than in her face. When the canvas was restored in 1953, cleaners found something unexpected on the back, a drawing of Saint Jerome that an added lining had kept hidden for centuries.