1604 (ca.), Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi), Deposition -- Vatican Museums (Rome)
From the museum label: This work, realised between 1600 and 1604, was commissioned by Girolamo Vittrice for the family chapel in the church of Santa Maria in Vallicella (Chiesa Nuova) in Rome to honour the memory of his uncle, Pietro, who had died in 1600. An absolute masterpiece of Caravaggio's Roman period, the painting was requistioned by the French in 1797 and taken to Paris, from whence it returned in 1817 and became part of the Vatican Picture Gallery. The work does not focus attention so much on the Deposition itself as on the moments immediately following in which, according to tradition, the body of Christ was laid on a marble slab (lapis untionis, anointing stone) to be washed, anointed and perfumed.
1604 (ca.), Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi), Deposition -- Vatican Museums (Rome)
From the museum label: This work, realised between 1600 and 1604, was commissioned by Girolamo Vittrice for the family chapel in the church of Santa Maria in Vallicella (Chiesa Nuova) in Rome to honour the memory of his uncle, Pietro, who had died in 1600. An absolute masterpiece of Caravaggio's Roman period, the painting was requistioned by the French in 1797 and taken to Paris, from whence it returned in 1817 and became part of the Vatican Picture Gallery. The work does not focus attention so much on the Deposition itself as on the moments immediately following in which, according to tradition, the body of Christ was laid on a marble slab (lapis untionis, anointing stone) to be washed, anointed and perfumed.