The Dead Christ Mourned

[2] In 1913 it was donated to the National Gallery, London, which describes it as "perhaps the most poignant image in [its] collection of the pietà – the lamentation over the dead Christ following his crucifixion – and one of the greatest expressions of grief in Baroque art".

In it Carracci has combined elements of three gospel accounts in one scene: the lamentation over the dead Christ, his entombment, and the discovery of the empty tomb by the Three Marys.

The pallor and posture of the unconscious Virgin, her head thrown back with right arm extended, echo those of her son.

The painting is heavily influenced by Correggio's Lamentation (c. 1524) in Parma, which has a similar triple of Christ's body resting on the lap of the Virgin who is supported by a female figure, with the Magdalene and another woman accompanying them.

The earliest reference to it, dating to 1684, places it in the collection of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Marquis de Seignelay, in France.