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

Christ Crucified Between the Two Thieves: 'The Three Crosses', 1653-c.1660. Rembrandt van Rijn (Dutch, 1606–1669). Drypoint; sheet: 37.5 x 44 cm (14 3/4 x 17 5/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Bequest of Ralph King and Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund, 1959.241

Created in 1653 during the Baroque period, this work belongs firmly within the power & politics tradition. Rembrandt van Rijn worked at a moment when the rivalry between Catholic Baroque drama and Protestant restraint reshaped what a painting could mean. Every gesture, fabric, and gleam of light was decoded by contemporary viewers like a private language.

As drypoint (Sheet: 37.5 x 44 cm (14 3/4 x 17 5/16 in.)), the work shows the tool marks and layering choices typical of Rembrandt van Rijn's output in this period — decisions about ground, underpainting, and glaze that a photograph can only partly convey.

Look closely and the painting opens up. Objects you might pass over — a folded letter, a half-drawn curtain, the angle of a glance — were placed to be read. Scale and setting do political work here, elevating the subject above the room it would have hung in.

Housed at Cleveland Museum of Art in Cleveland, the painting has passed through the hands of collectors, dealers, and institutions before reaching public view — a provenance that is itself part of the object's story.

“A silence so complete it becomes its own witness.”