The Crucifixon of Jesus Christ French Sculptor

This limestone relief shows a family kneeling at the feet of Christ on the cross, their hands clasped in prayer; behind each of them stands a holy intercessor. At the foot of the cross is the skull of Adam and in the background, behind Golgotha, a medieval city surrounded by walls, which probably represents Jerusalem. Donors sometimes chose their homonymous saints as intercessors, but this is not systematic: the saints figured here were particularly venerated and very commonly chosen as personal saints at the end of the Middle Ages, so this is not sufficient to deduce the baptismal names of the members of this family. On the left, we see Saint Barbara, with the palm of her martyrdom and the tower with three windows behind her: according to the legend, having been locked up by her father in a tower with two windows, she would have pierced a third opening in tribute to the Trinity. This tower is not integrated into the city walls on the relief, which indicates that it is indeed an independent attribute. Next to her, Saint Magdalene is shown as a penitent with her long, loose hair and modestly dressed in an antique costume corresponding to early Christian times. On the other side of the cross, the Archangel Saint Michael is easily recognisable by his wings and his armour. The last saint, on the right, has not been identified: he carries on his right shoulder a rectangular object, perhaps an axe. He is dressed, just like Saint Barbara and the donors, in a costume from the end of the fifteenth century. The two women in the front wear a simple headdress with a pleated train at the back that falls to their feet.

The carving does not depict a narrative scene but rather an abstract, devotional image. It is a scene of intercession: the patron saints all perform the same protective gesture, a hand placed on the head of the donors, to accompany them in their prayers and present them to Christ, who looks down with a benevolent gaze. From the fifteenth century, the cult of the holy intercessors developed considerably. They were frequently depicted in contemporary clothes, thus appearing all the more familiar and accessible. Although devoid of a halo, they nevertheless remain recognisable by their attributes and their size, which slightly exceeds that of the donors. This relief was probably a private devotional image or an altarpiece for a private church or chapel. The faces are remarkable for their serious and contemplative expression.



This relief shows typically medieval features: for example, the size of the figures is not realistic but conventional, proportional to their importance; moreover, even if the characters and the architecture are arranged on different planes, there is no search for perspective. However, some details are characteristic of the Renaissance, in particular, the architectural setting: the scene is framed by a coffered arch supported by two pilasters and the spandrels are carved with leaves similar to acanthus leaves. The set must have originally been framed by two pilasters, of which only the one on the left remains. It is decorated on the front with a finely carved foliage and on the side, with funerary patterns: a shovel, a scythe and bones, crossed and held by a ribbon. There are birds at the corners of the capital. We find very similar motifs on funerary monuments such as the tomb of François II in the cathedral of Nantes (1502–1507) and that of Pons de Gontaut († 1524), in the chapel of the castle of Biron, both due to Michel Colombe (1430–1513); or even on the tomb of Jacques II de Chabannes and his wife Marie de Melun in the chapel of the castle of Lapalisse (or La Palice), about fifty kilometres from Moulins (now at the Musée Calvet in Avignon). These similarities have led us to locate the origin of the relief of Budapest in the Bourbonnais or the Loire Valley, around 1500. (See La sculpture bourbonnaise, entre Moyen Âge et Renaissance, exh. cat., Musée départemental Anne de Beaujeu, Moulins, 2019 (Dijon: Faton, 2019), 43.)
The name of Michel Colombe was once associated with the Budapest sculpture as well as with the Museum of Fine Arts’ Saint Barbara (inv. no. 52.816) from Bourbonnais. This Crucifixion once belonged to Hungarian collector Rudolf Bedő, who bought it in Paris in the 1920s, thinking it was part of Michel Colombe’s sculptures for the castle of Biron. Actually, nothing allows us to link this relief directly to Michel Colombe, but the comparison is not without foundation. As we know little about the sculpture workshops of Bourbonnais at the end of the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance, it is difficult to advance hypotheses, but this relief does indeed present a mixture of medieval features and Italianate ornaments characteristic of the art of Michel Colombe and taken up by his contemporaries. The motif of donors being presented by their patron saints is very common in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century art; in Bourbonnais, the most famous example of this type of composition is due to Jean Hey, also referred to as the “master of Moulins”. (Pierre Yves Quémener, Le saint patron dont on porte le nom. Genèse d’une dévotion [XVe – XVIe siècles], 2015.)
The size and the material of this relief, and even the costumes are much more modest than in the various examples cited above, which correspond to very prestigious commissions. It is likely that the donors of this relief were wealthy without being of a very high rank. Without additional clues, it is difficult to specify the context of the commission and the identity of the donors.


Axelle Goupy