Crucifixion entre saint Jérôme et saint Christophe

This is a small panel, and that smallness is the point. Painted around 1475, it is one of the earliest surviving works by Pinturicchio, a young painter from Perugia at the start of a career that would later take him into the pope's own apartments in the Vatican. A picture this size was made for private prayer, probably part of a portable altarpiece someone could set up at home. Look at the wide landscape behind the cross, the winding river and distant hills painted with an almost Flemish patience, for Umbrian artists had been studying Netherlandish pictures for their glowing detail. On the left kneels Saint Jerome with his lion, and on the right stands the giant Christopher, who carried the Christ child across a river. The panel has come down to us in near-perfect condition.