Home » The Museum » Paintings and affines » Paintings » SS. Crocifisso di Monreale

SS. Crocifisso di Monreale

Paintings Glass painting
Single artwork

1.800,00

Description by the artist

In the painting of the SS. Crucifix is represented the legend that tells of two ships one with a Turkish crew and the other with a Christian crew. On the Turkish ship there was a crucifix treated in an outrageous way and the crew of the Christian ship, made up of Palermo and Monreale, irritated by this, offered them money in exchange for the same. When the Christian ship landed in Palermo, in order to decide who among the people of Palermo and Monreale would take possession of it, the latter decided to place the crucifix on a cart pulled by oxen and where they would stop, there would be built a church that would guard it. The oxen stopped in Monreale and here was built the church of the Collegiate. The painting was made on a glass sheet with the use of oil paints and silver and gold leaf. The glass painting is an ancient painting technique almost disappeared, whose peculiarity is to realize the subjects according to a “specular” perspective, so that at the end of the work the glass sheet must be “turned”, to show the correct side that will be clearly visible thanks to the transparency of the glass. In order to obtain the correct pictorial result, the artist will have to proceed by superimposing various layers of paint, inserting, first, the decorative details of the subject, and then finish with the larger parts.

Details and dimensions

Materials: Glass painting
Dimensions (cm): Height 73, Width 53, Depth 2
Weight (kg): 2
Handcrafted in Sicily

The artwork in the Sicilian culture

By the Governance of Sicilian Artisan Foundation

Among the various schools of glass painting in Europe and Italy, that of the Pincisanti (painters of saints), had a particular resonance in Sicily between the nineteenth and early twentieth century. These were craftsmen-artists who made paintings on glass commissioned by the most varied social classes and that were placed in homes, especially as bedside tables in the bedrooms. The saint or the religious scene to be depicted was almost always commissioned by the buyer in relation to a grace received or to some particularly venerated protector.

Photo Monreale, Collegiata church

The Governance also suggests

The objective of the Governance is both to safeguard the traditions and ancient crafts of the people of Sicily, and to sustain economically the Artisans and the Artists, both the real ethno-anthropologists of the country.
Request more information about

SS. Crocifisso di Monreale

    I agree with the privacy policy