historical description

In 1443 Donatello went to Padua to work on the bronze Crucifix intended for the altar in the centre of the choir of Il Santo (the Church of St. Anthony of Padua). We know from a contemporary document that it was being finished and polished in 1445 but that it was completed only in 1449, when it was placed in the middle of the church. It was therefore not conceived as part of the group called the Altare del Santo, which Donatello executed about 1447-50.

This is a crop of the overall crucifix, leaving just the head and expressive features known in Donatello’s later works.