Christ Crucified Between the Two Thieves: 'The Three Crosses'

Cleveland Museum of Art

Christ Crucified Between the Two Thieves: 'The Three Crosses'

Rembrandt van RijnLinkedCulture matchlcp-adad34d778fc

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

Rembrandt’s Christ Crucified Between the Two Thieves is executed entirely in drypoint. Because of the delicacy of the technique, the copper plate was worn after the artist printed about 40 impressions of the first three states. In order to continue using the plate, Rembrandt reworked it, changing the image somewhat. In this fourth state, slashing strokes obscure the spectators visible in the earlier version, creating a tenebrous setting that focuses attention on Christ bathed in celestial light. Although drypoint is an inherently linear medium, Rembrandt used it to obtain tonal qualities associated with painting. The blackness becomes an active force that threatens to extinguish the light of Christ—a literal illustration of the Evangelist Luke’s description of the event that brought "a darkness over all the earth." When he printed this impression, Rembrandt deliberately left ink on the printing plate, specifically on the left and right sides, essentially creating a unique work.

LinkedCulture assembled this text from several fields of Cleveland Museum of Art’s catalogue record, so it is not the museum’s own wording as published. See “How LinkedCulture maps this record” below.

Cleveland Museum of Art’s catalogue record

Medium
drypoint
Credit Line
Bequest of Ralph King and Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
Type of artwork
Print
Department
Prints

Also in Cleveland Museum of Art’s record. The museum’s own label for these fields has not been confirmed yet, so each is named by its field in the museum’s data.

creation_date
1653-c.1660

Taken from LinkedCulture’s stored copy of Cleveland Museum of Art’s record. A fresh capture of the museum’s own record has not been made for this object yet.

What the image shows

A dramatic etching depicting the crucifixion of Jesus Christ surrounded by soldiers and onlookers.

Generated by LinkedCulture from the photograph alone, without the museum’s catalogue text (Qwen/Qwen2.5-VL-7B-Instruct), and not yet reviewed by a person. It describes the picture, not the object’s history, and it is not part of the museum’s record.

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The authoritative record is held by Cleveland Museum of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata. The fields above are the museum’s, under its own labels. LinkedCulture’s derived fields are listed separately below and marked as ours.

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Open this page QR destination: https://linkedculture.org/q/q1.b_9ihCihhSKutDeR.t9lV87DFugzuWy3KrwrwCHSN1z7LM2oHgoF5d5dkMgv7RAtXhSmLDwRPtc49KjHK1UT06yyy0a51Q4I7ML9deyMF5-zBomTwGagodCzg-n7ohpkde9NHgWKi-2XqxPcoe9gepos3ZHE9RZyay7_5yvv1TYRC0V8T0_avxPEy51-rozaCKXlE7qpGmkLM5ylOs_881xPe12UQ8-MbShhGDjPxR-STxDdboyq6hnITM-IiLjeaeRwbfol3EJixDtCpOx0fRsKaJ-QIVsy2FqQYiNCHLlrv9z-c4qapcMoiHfIZuCbu3ASee at Cleveland Museum of Art QR destination: https://linkedculture.org/q/q1.3ER6yoL4Q7TPHSc0.qz4rAPfBcrJrlWsBrI2BZrGtlnW6n4HFkkw1qHNO4D4eBflDujRawhY9IflUQwPNAinHaHLndcL-bXY3r5HVlqO1Hbk1m_nao6ngRFy06mENXJkXsHcV_PxCzEAKVBZn1tfLiCnn41XDmhtlGQM92q8CtnHA2HgSJ8vwYVlQ85DVMOnVBTT6r3ZOGZ_YnLQhdy-SW2d1uZAF4O8IyB6xCiK_cOHIjPmBh2IJNMeAIydlLkHwosI4gC03YYJIqlv4Eg6pqIFLrea4lFQvC6pNWGBenCqNC5pLmRKP_TIZjw
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How LinkedCulture maps this record

To search objects from different museums together, LinkedCulture reads each museum’s record into a common set of fields. The values below are LinkedCulture’s, under LinkedCulture’s names. They are not Cleveland Museum of Art’s wording; the museum’s own record is shown above under its own labels.

Object ID
135706
Object Type
Print
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field “Type of artwork” · copied as is
Creator
Rembrandt van Rijn
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field creators (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · derived by LinkedCulture from the museum field · Artist-role creator's description with life dates removed.
Culture
Rembrandt, 17th century
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field “Culture” · copied as is
Medium
drypoint
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field “Medium” · copied as is · Cleveland's 'technique' field holds materials.
Department
Prints
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field “Department” · copied as is
Tags
  • male
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field tags (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · combined from several museum fields
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field artists_tags (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · combined from several museum fields
Credit Line
Bequest of Ralph King and Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field “Credit Line” · copied as is
Date
1653-c.1660
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field creation_date (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · copied as is
Begin Year
1653
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field creation_date_earliest (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · copied as is
End Year
1665
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field creation_date_latest (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · copied as is

The museum’s own record has not been captured for this object yet, so the museum fields shown above are limited to values LinkedCulture stored unchanged.

LinkedCulture video

Christ Crucified Between the Two Thieves: 'The Three Crosses'

Jul 29, 2026 · Short

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Museum record

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