The Entombment of Christ by Caravaggio was created in ca. 1600 – 1604. The painting is in Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican City. The size of the work is 300 x 203 cm and is made as an oil on canvas.
The Entombment was probably planned and begun in 1602/3. The chapel in which the Entombment was to be hung, was dedicated to the Pietà, and was founded by Pietro Vittrice, a friend of Pope Gregory XIII and close follower of Filippo Neri. The Capella della Pietà occupied a ‘privileged’ position in the Chiesa Nuova: Mass could be celebrated from it and it was granted special indulgences. The Entombment is as tragic as Pieta of Michelangelo, which Caravaggio must have had in mind as he painted. Two members of the grieving little group are gently bearing Christ’s body into a cave-tomb barely visible in the obscurity of the left background.
About the Artist: Italian painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was born in Milan. During the final four years of his life he moved between Naples, Malta, and Sicily until his death. His paintings have been characterized by art critics as combining a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, which had a formative influence on Baroque painting. Caravaggio employed close physical observation with a dramatic use of chiaroscuro that came to be known as tenebrism… Read more
