In search of Caravaggio's Entombment of Christ

Following Caravaggio's path requires, in some cases, doubling back to view paintings that fill in gaps in the trail. Such was the case for his Deposition (1602 - 04). I had made a number of trips to Rome to feast on that city's wealth of Caravaggio works but had not gotten to the Vatican Museums where that particular piece is housed. I took advantage of my daughter's first trip to Rome -- and her desire to see the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel -- to pay a visit to the Pinacoteca Vaticana and the work that the Vatican Museums has described as "one of Caravaggio's greatest masterpieces."

It was a very hot day in Rome so it was sweltering in the museum as we wended our way through the myriad art-laden rooms that preceded the Sistine Chapel; and the portable AC units that were sprinkled here and there were inadequate to the task at hand. After marveling at the ceiling for a brief period, we took off in search of the Pinacoteca and the Caravaggio piece.

I scanned the wealth of works in the Pinacoteca looking for the telltale tenebrism of Caravaggio but it was not until I got close to the end that I saw the familiar pose of the Entombment; but something was off. It appeared softer and greyer than I would have expected. And then it hit me. This was not a work by Caravaggio. I consulted the literature accompanying the piece; and everything became clearer. The Caravaggio painting was, disappointingly, out for restoration and its place had been taken by a Gobelins Manufactory tapestry created in 1852 - 55 and based on the Master's painting. A picture of that tapestry is shown below.

Gobelins Manufactory, The Entombment
of Christ, 1852 - 55. After the painting
by Michelangelo Merisi known as
Caravaggio

I was forced to visit the Vatican Museums website to view a picture of the Caravaggio piece. According to the museum, the Entombment (also called Deposition) was commissioned by Girolamo Vittrice for his family chapel in the church of Santa Maria in Vallicella. This painting had been among the works transferred to Paris in 1787 as a result of the Treaty of Tolentino but had been returned to Rome after Napoleon's fall. In Rome it was housed in Pope Pius VIIs Pinacoteca.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio,
The Entombment of Christ, c. 1602 - 04
(Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome)

This work was created during a period which I have named Caravaggio: Riding the Wave. Caravaggio's work in the Contarelli Chapel received widespread acclaim and lifted him up on a wave that he rode with gusto until he came crashing back to earth in 1606. 

The first evidence of Caravaggio's newfound fame was a commission from Monsignor Tibero Cesari -- Treasurer-General to Pope Clement VIII -- to provide two paintings for the side panels of the Cesari Chapel of the Basilica di Santa Maria del Popolo. Cesari had recently bought the patronage rights to the chapel and commissioned Carracci and Caravaggio to provide the necessary artwork. Caravaggio's two paintings were supposed to commemorate Saints Peter and Paul but his first two submittals (Crucifixion of Saint Peter, c. 1600 - 1601 and Conversion of Saul, c. 1600 - 01) were not accepted. It is thought that Caravaggio painted the pieces prior to getting accurate measurements and the finished paintings did not fit the space. 

These two paintings were subsequently bought by the Catholic Cardinal Giacomo Sennesia with the surviving one -- Conversion of Saul -- now resident in the Nicoletta Odescalchi Collection and shown at Caravaggio 2025. The two rejected paintings were replaced with Conversion on the Way to Damascus, 1601 and Crucifixion of St Peter, 1601. Both of these paintings were accepted and are present in the named chapel to this day.

Riding the wave, Caravaggio had, subsequent to those two paintings, and prior to the Entombment,  produced The Supper at Emmaus (1601); The Taking of Christ (1602), The Crowning of Thorns (1603); and St John the Baptist in the Wilderness (1602 - 1604).

The Entombment shows Jesus about to be laid on the Anointing Stone (stone that will seal the tomb) by John and Nicodemus while the Virgin Mother, Mary Magdalene, and Mary of Cleophus (with arms upraised) bear witness. The painting is characterized by the artists trademark tenebrism with the light illuminating the stark reality of the scene: a stone seemingly about to exit the picture frame; musculature; veins; defined rib cage; the dead weight of Jesus' body; John's fingers intruding into the wound in Jesus' side; the naturalness of the fall of his lifeless arm; the seeming extended middle finger; the everydayness of the face looking towards the viewer; the sorrow etched on the faces of the Virgin and Mary Magdalene; and the unshod feet of the bearer.

The major design construct is an upward right diagonal beginning at the point of Jesus' head.

So I still have not seen this piece in person but will keep my ears open for when it does return from the conservation effort.

Understanding the initial ownership paths of Vermeer's body of work: After Andrew Graham-Dixon

Andrew Graham-Dixon, acclaimed Caravaggio biographer, has recently published a book titled Vermeer: A Life Lost and Found and, while I am still in its early stages, I found some enlightening revelations. I report on these early findings in this post.

Graham-Dixon's research has shown that a significant portion of Vermeer's work was done for one family; and ownership of those works stayed within the family until the death of the last member and a subsequent auction.

Six years after Vermeer's death, a married woman named Magdalene Peters van Ruijven also died. She was 27 years old at the time of her death and had only been married for 2 years to her surviving spouse Jacob Dissus. Magdalene had been the daughter of a heir (her father) to a brewing fortune and a mother who hailed from a wealthy Delft family. Both of her parents preceded her in death and she had inherited their possessions, a part of which was a collection of paintings.

Magdalene's will bequeathed her assets to her spouse and the Delft city records still show the enumeration of those assets. According to the Recorder, a total of 20 Vermeer paintings were passed from Magdalene to her husband; 2/3 of Vermeer's known production. According to Graham-Clark, this list had been discovered and published by John Michael Montias 30 years ago.

Following Magdalene's death, Jacob, for one reason or another, was obligated to share her estate with his father; inclusive of six Vermeers. It is not clear under what circumstances Dissus regained, or retained, ownership of those paintings but all 20 were found in his print shop upon his death in 1695. His paintings were sold at auction in Amsterdam subsequent to his death.

The Delft recorder had not assigned names to any of the paintings but the Amsterdam auctioneer did (as shown below). Two of the paintings are unknown and are presumed lost.

Graham-Dixon sees this collection as unique in a number of ways. First, it was built around the works of a single painter. Vermeer had begun working for the Van Ruijven's about 1657 -- while he was in his mid-20s -- and, for the next 13 years, painted almost exclusively for them. At the end of this period he more or less gave up painting. Graham-Dixon noted that this was unusual in the "annals of patron-artist relationships."

The collection was fuirther unique in the way that the family cherished and preserved the holdings. Graham-Dixon asserts that Vermeer's lack of visibility in the art world was due to this fact. He had done most of his work for them and they held it tightly to their collective chests.

One of the paintings included in the auction was unnamed, but due to the description, Graham-Dixon contends that it "can be plausibly identified as The Art of Painting." If that is the case, it would have been purchased subsequent to Vermeer's death as he had retained control of it during his lifetime and, further, it was inherited by his widow post his death. It had been sold by the Administrator against her will. If bought by the van Ruijvens, it would have been the daughter, or the Mom, making the purchase as the Dad had died by this time. To round out the possibilities, the painting described in the listing could have been a second version of The Art of Painting (now lost) or could have been a different painting altogether (also lost).

A total of 20 Vermeers had been recorded at the time of Magdalene's death yet 21 of his works were offered at the auction. Graham-Dixon offers two alternatives: (i) Dissus bought another Vermeer between 1683 and 1695 or (ii) the Recorder failed to identify one of the other paintings in the inherited assets as a Vermeer.

The third unique bit about this collection was that it (i) amounted to 2/3 of Vermeer's total production and (ii) contained almsot all of the paintings on which his modern reputation has been built. The figure below captures the Vermeer works that were not included in the auction and categorizes them according to Graham-Dixon's characterization.

According to Graham-Dixon, the two genre paintings, on the basis of the same coat of arms appearing in a stained-glass window in each of them, seem to have been commissioned by the same family. He added The Love Letter to the genre category because it "follows the convention of Dutch genre painting in a straightforward way." It is not known who purchased this piece originally.

The Astronomer and The Greographer were commissioned by a director of the Dutch East India Company. Allegory of the Catholic Faith was commissioned by an Amsterdam Burgher.

As shown in the figure above, seven Vermeer-typical paintings were created for non-Ruijven patron(s). With the exception of Young Woman with a Water Pitcher, it is unclear who commissioned these paintings.

To Graham-Dixon it is clear that "with few exceptions, Vermeer created his most distinctive and memorable pictures for the Ruijven family."

In the Footsteps of Piero della Francesca: The Milan sequel -- Madonna and Child with Saints, Angels and Federico da Montefeltro (1469 - 70)

"... the painting ... is sublime. Serene, sculptural, luminous, muted in color and masterly in its creation of an illusionistic space, the altarpiece crystallizes the extraordinary talents of its creator, Piero della Francesca." Thus does Judith Dobrzynski (Masterpiece: Underwriting and Outstanding Altar, The Wall Street Journal, 3/5/22) describe the work Madonna and Child with Saints, Angels and Federico da Montefeltro. The painting, housed in Milan's Pinocoteca di Brera, is also known by the names The Montefeltro Altarpiece, The San Bernardino Altarpiece, and The Brera Altarpiece. Karen and I had the honor of viewing it in situ on September 1 of this year. 

Piero della Francesca, Madonna and
Child with Saints, Angels and
Federico da Montefeltro, 1469 - 1470

The Patron

The painting was ordered by Federico da Montefeltro to honor either his late wife (died 1472) or their newly born son. Federico had also been considering his mortality and had chosen the church of San Bernardino as the site of his mausoleum. The painting was intended to be installed therein. 

Who was Federico? Also known as Federico III da Montefeltro KG, he “was one of the most successful mercenary captains of the Italian Renaissance” and lord of Urbino from 1444 until his death in 1482. 

According to blog.der-leiermann.com:

Few names embody the paradox of the Italian Renaissance as fully as that of Federico da Montefeltro. He was a condottiere, a man of war who spent his life on the battlefield and whose power rested on military discipline. Yet at the same time he was one of the greatest patrons of his age, a humanist who supported philosophy and science, who gathered artists and architects around him and transformed Urbino into a radiant island of culture.

According to the Uffizi, Piero was a frequent guest at Federico's court, "finding himself in a cultured and refined atmosphere which would soon become one of the most important cultural and artistic hearts of Italy."

So Federico had the cultural pedigree and financial resources to solicit the creation of a masterpiece from the artist and Piero's appreciation for the court augured well for timely and successful completion of the effort.

The Painting

Style

All sources characterize this painting as a "sacred conversation" a genre which, according to Dobrzynski, originated in the first half of the 15th century and "replaced the traditional triptych and polypytch altarpieces." The sacred conversation pieces generally included Mary and Jesus flanked by saints and, in some cases, donors "in a single architectural space." The scene for these conversations were frequently the church apse.

Construct

The construct of the paintings and its interpretations are presented in the following annotated diagram. The annotations are drawn mostly from the Dobrzynski article.

Disposition

According to breraplus.org, the altarpiece came from the Church of San Bernardino in Urbino to Brera after the Napoleonic absolutions. Subsequent restorations and studies have revealed that the current instance of the painting has been reduced in size from its initial implementation

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In late-November 2025 I toured the cities wherein Piero della Francesca did most of his work and where many of his existing works are still displayed. I have previously written about the precipitating factors -- as regards the trip -- as well as  early experiences and will continue to flesh out the entirety of the trip over time. I have also previously described post-trip Piero experiences in Massachusetts and the foregoing falls into that latter category.