The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art acquired an exceptionally rare 14th-century Italian painting, the Rasini Crucifixion, (c.1350), a foundational work of northern Italian art representing the impact of the new painting style set in motion a decade earlier by Giotto and his disciples—a decisive turning point in European art history. While the painter’s identity remains uncertain, the Veronese painter Altichiero (1330–before 1393) is a strong candidate for attribution.

“The Rasini Crucifixion is among the most significant trecento works to come to market in recent decades, and is now the most important early Italian painting in the Wadsworth’s collection,” said Dr. Keith Christiansen, Curator Emeritus in the Department of European Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, “Although it is a work of relatively modest size, it possesses the narrative complexity and emotional impact of a monumental fresco on a chapel wall.”