Hulin de Loo, Georges: Early Flemish paintings in the Renders Collection at Bruges: exhibited at the Belgian Exhibition, Burlington House, January 1927 (London, 1927)

some kindred work painted in a studio of a perhaps later
The figure of Christ is exactly the same in Siena as in
Bruges : there is the same long, emaciated figure, the same
distended arms borne down by the weight of the body below
the arms of the cross; the whole upper part of the body
hangs straight and flat against the tree of torture; the legs
alone are slightly turned towards the left; the feet are joined
and pierced by a single nail. All these united details are
peculiar to Duccio, and before his time were not to be
found in Italy grouped in this manner; now they all appear
in our panel, even unto the blood dripping in the same way
from the wounds in the hands, side and feet, even to the
hair falling to the right of the crucified Christ. The group
of holy women on the left is also very instructive. The Virgin
is shown in that peculiarly characteristic attitude where she
seems to be fainting, but yet at the same time she is raising her
head to look at the cross and at her dying Son, both, she as well
as the companion supporting her, are here reproduced exactly.
On the right the aged man standing, symbolising the converted
centurion, as is shown by the hood worn as headdress and by
the arm which he rather awkwardly holds straight up, is common
9t Notwithstanding these striking resemblances, we think how-
ever that our Franco - Flemish artist did not draw his inspiration
directly from the picture of the Crucifixion itself, which is now
in the « Opera del Duomo » at Siena. In fact the diverse
« variantes » that we perceive in the two pictures — St. John