Annibale Carracci
The Burial of Christ

1595
Oil on copper
Metropolitan Museum of Art

This "Entombment" painting is a tour de force using light and shadow, naturalistic posing and body-modeling, and awesome formal composition. In fine Baroque fashion, St. John steps “down” from the lower left of the painting. We see about two thirds of him, carrying the leg end of the body “down” to its resting place, leading a procession in which Peter and James hold the head end and others are in the dimness behind: Joseph of Arimathea (clad and turbaned as a rich man of the East), then very unspecific hooded figures.  Meanwhile, Mary (blue and white clothing) watches seated in the right foreground, her face illuminated. This gives a broad diagonal that stretches from the upper right to the lower left of the painting.

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The Burial of Christ, 1595

Annibale Carracci (Italian, Bolognese, 1560–1609)
Oil on copper; 17 1/4 x 13 3/4 in. (43.8 x 34.9 cm)
Purchase, Edwin L. Weisl Jr. Gift, 1998 (1998.188)

This deeply moving picture was painted in 1595 for one of Annibale Carracci's staunch patrons, Astorre di Vincenzo Sampieri, a canon of the cathedral of San Pietro in Bologna. Intended as a gift for an important figure in Rome, it was retained by Sampieri, who sent a copy instead. Annibale chose the theme because of its dramatic and artistic possibilities. We view the event within the burial chamber, the figures are lit by a torch, and through an opening can be seen the holy women against a dawn-lit landscape. These kinds of contrasts and narrative interaction are at the core of classical painting. The picture was much admired: at least seven copies are known in addition to the one Sampieri sent on to Rome (that one, untraced, was painted by the young Guido Reni). The period frame has been lent by The Robert Lehman Collection.

Photo: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York