Wing of a Reliquary Diptych with the Crucifixion and Saints

This work, perhaps the right wing of a diptych (two-panel painting), is one of only two known 14th-century paintings to combine painted panels with plaques of verre églomisé (gilded reverse painted glass). The Crucifixion at center and the Virgin at the top are verre églomisé by an unknown artist, while the images of numerous saints around them are panel paintings by Tommaso da Modena. The Crucifixion and the Virgin were scratched into gold leaf applied to the back of glass. The areas where the gold leaf had been removed were painted to clarify the scenes. This object doubles as a reliquary; the labels in red around the Crucifixion identify the relics enshrined within. These are the wood of the True Cross and a stone from the Holy Sepulcher (top), the bones of the 11,000 Virgins and one of the Magi (right), the bones of St. James the Apostle (bottom), the Apostle Andrew, the Evangelist Luke, and St. Peter and St. Paul (left).

Provenance

Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object.

Private collection, Rome [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Sale, Villa Borghese, Rome, March 17, 1893, lot 385 [Padiglione dell Orologio a Villa Borghese, pl. XIII]; Marquess Filippo Marignoli, Rome and Spoleto, prior to 1898 [mode of acquisition unknown]; Marquess Francesco Marignoli, 1898 [mode of acquisition unknown]; Don Marcello Massarenti Collection, Rome, 1899 [mode of acquisition unknown] [1900 catalogue supplement: no. 51, as Taddeo Gaddi]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1902, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.