A Triptych: Agony in the Garden, The Crucifixion, and the Raising the Patriarchs and Prophets from the Dead

This small but significant 14th-century altarpiece is one of the few Italian works in the Corcoran’s collection. In medieval Siena, portable altarpieces such as the Vanni triptych were very much in vogue—a testament to both the rising merchant class and the central role of the church. Intended for devotional use in a private household chapel, the altarpiece has panels that could be folded shut and boxed in velvet to be carried while traveling. Although stories drawn from the life of Christ or that of a particular saint may not be familiar to viewers today, in the Middle Ages they were highly recognizable. This triptych, which was part of a larger work, describes sequential stories from the Passion of Christ and is read from left to right. The particular versions of the Agony in the Garden, the Crucifixion, and the Harrowing of Hell depicted here were not drawn from the New Testament but from the apocryphal gospel of Nicodemus.