The Crucifixion of Saint Andrew

Cleveland Museum of Art

The Crucifixion of Saint Andrew

CaravaggioLinkedCulture matchlcp-a4e2351fd37e

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

Saint Andrew’s efforts to introduce Christianity to Greece in the first century CE were met with hostility from local authorities. He was sentenced to die on the cross because he refused to acknowledge pagan gods. For two days, Andrew preached from his martyr’s station to an increasingly sympathetic crowd. Bowing to public demand, Andrew’s would-be executioners attempted to untie him, but their hands were mysteriously paralyzed. Andrew’s desire for martyrdom was thus fulfilled and he died enveloped in divine light. Caravaggio’s innovative interpretation involves the viewer more closely in the event by presenting the crucifixion as intimate and private, rather than as a gruesome public spectacle. Bold contrasts of light and dark suggest the presence of God. A masterpiece of Baroque painting, Caravaggio’s Crucifixion of Saint Andrew is the only altarpiece by the artist in America. Although Saint Andrew is typically associated with an X-shaped cross, here he is depicted on a standard vertical cross.

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
oil on canvas
Credit Line
Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund
Type of artwork
Painting
Department
European Painting and Sculpture

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
1606–7

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.

From LinkedCulture

A dying man begs his executioners not to save him. In Caravaggio's Crucifixion of Saint Andrew, painted in Naples in 1606 and 1607, an emaciated Andrew hangs on a vertical cross, his gaunt face tilted upward in serene resolve while a muscular executioner reaches helplessly toward the ropes, his hands mysteriously paralyzed. A single beam of light pulls every figure from near-total darkness, drawing the viewer into what feels like a private moment rather than a public spectacle. This oil on canvas is the only altarpiece by Caravaggio in an American collection.

Written by LinkedCulture for its video on this object. Machine-generated (claude-sonnet-4-6), not yet reviewed by a person. It is not part of the museum’s record.

What the image shows

Two men are crucified on a cross, surrounded by 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/q1.9Hr-X-bk8GJ5onCY.eQjPjsyzNGG2uUJoMNfYHFs_bBjfPnTCi4b4kK1gZ4i1C8KBYPUDFMiLZ9D9KkF2rdH1cbDuKA8SJ9FiiQbo7KpYwNt9mQPalqGHufAT6HgDFuCdjCsiH1KPhp59WhsOx4AdazwsBHnW9UxhZF8Qf40CvAMKlwmwhHT7aKstDvqe6DSreexL_JGuYHg7eK58NciFinReTkWnvecETf664s3mDC9idZr1GPlFTsstp1ONQFTbWBP_dlzxuep2hKW3lTXHzMxhNHuombcMGOiWLDiJRV6I603TJSvey8YPjB_K9ZdqZQSee at Cleveland Museum of Art QR destination: https://linkedculture.org/q/q1.RbM0RaJsnfNkNWdD.WMNEsR4nBZWQXmCn07LnfIJe9v-jUSZ4b1kOfBbNXvFSK8K2owTGzJIJS_nHu-GPj6IUnXrZsr-yPeD5CouWLoxD6KefVddHredvcCQM39Mrs4Mnn7W2olqO2SSbMPtI4mWRD6xDlcNyrmblIFPFFn5DelOdi2fz2LGiwMIa7HwZkv1Be6hS2XpjlbDYD9uKqYosnuHNgiyLbmq84L5yej9Dd3QtxEQDWWMqoJzQ0dg12E9Zj_GmKBjPc8m1eVwpfBVpo2QcU0C4rg8-S3ji5Kc4rxyQOEm4hRC_qkQ
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Provenance & credit

As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.

Provenance
1603–1610: Don Juan Alonso Pimentel y Herrera, Eighth Conde de Benavente, Spanish viceroy in Naples. | Don Juan Francisco Alonso Pimentel y Ponce de Léon (grandson of above, inherited) Tenth Conde de Benavente, Valladolid. | An unidentified convent in Castilla, Spain. | A. Tors, Madrid. | 1973: José Manuel Arnaiz, Madrid.
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
148758
Object Type
Painting
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field “Type of artwork” · copied as is
Creator
Caravaggio
  • 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
Italy, Naples
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field “Culture” · copied as is
Medium
oil on canvas
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field “Medium” · copied as is · Cleveland's 'technique' field holds materials.
Department
European Painting and Sculpture
  • 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
Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field “Credit Line” · copied as is
Provenance
1603–1610: Don Juan Alonso Pimentel y Herrera, Eighth Conde de Benavente, Spanish viceroy in Naples. | Don Juan Francisco Alonso Pimentel y Ponce de Léon (grandson of above, inherited) Tenth Conde de Benavente, Valladolid. | An unidentified convent in Castilla, Spain. | A. Tors, Madrid. | 1973: José Manuel Arnaiz, Madrid.
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field “Provenance” · copied as is
Date
1606–7
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field creation_date (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · copied as is
Begin Year
1606
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field creation_date_earliest (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · copied as is
End Year
1607
  • 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

The Crucifixion of Saint Andrew

Aug 8, 2026 · Short

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Museum record

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