1454, Fra Angelico, Christ on the Cross, the Virgin, Saint John the Evangelist, and Cardinal Torquemada -- Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge)
From the museum label: This painting, the central portion of a tabernacle, is one of Fra Angelico’s great late private commissions. The kneeling figure, who has taken off his galero, or cardinal’s hat, to pray at the foot of the cross, has been identified as the Spanish cardinal Juan de Torquemada, with whom Fra Angelico was in residence in Rome in the early 1450s. Both artist and patron were Dominican friars and are buried in the church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva in Rome. Adding to the immediacy of the painting, the artist has depicted the cardinal at full scale, with the biblical figures of the Virgin and Saint John at the base of the cross. Adam’s skull marks the site of the Crucifixion, known as Golgotha. The Tree of Life, springing from the top, contains a pelican puncturing its breast to feed its offspring, a gesture symbolic of Christ’s sacrifice for mankind.
1454, Fra Angelico, Christ on the Cross, the Virgin, Saint John the Evangelist, and Cardinal Torquemada -- Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge)
From the museum label: This painting, the central portion of a tabernacle, is one of Fra Angelico’s great late private commissions. The kneeling figure, who has taken off his galero, or cardinal’s hat, to pray at the foot of the cross, has been identified as the Spanish cardinal Juan de Torquemada, with whom Fra Angelico was in residence in Rome in the early 1450s. Both artist and patron were Dominican friars and are buried in the church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva in Rome. Adding to the immediacy of the painting, the artist has depicted the cardinal at full scale, with the biblical figures of the Virgin and Saint John at the base of the cross. Adam’s skull marks the site of the Crucifixion, known as Golgotha. The Tree of Life, springing from the top, contains a pelican puncturing its breast to feed its offspring, a gesture symbolic of Christ’s sacrifice for mankind.