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Pietà

Inventory Number

L2023.3

Artist

From the Circle of Nikolaos Tzafouris

Title

Pietà

Object Date

Late 15th Century

Country of Origin

Crete, Greece

Credit Line

On loan from a private collection, courtesy of Agnew's Gallery

Provenance

Inherited by descendants of Marilis Brutighm, later moved to Munich
In the Marilis Brutighm Collection, Strasbourg, 1910
In the Conte Giulio Sterbini Collection, Rome, 1905-1910
In the private collection of Carlo Sasinio (1759-1838)

Keywords

Metric Dims

62.2 x 51.3 x 2.9 cm

Medium

Egg tempera on wood, gold leaf

Mary cradles the lifeless body of her son. Delicately supporting his head and torso, she turns his body out to the faithful. Highly moving images of Christ’s Passion flourished in Byzantium in the eleventh century and persisted through the end of the empire.

In the aftermath of the Sack of Constantinople in 1204 Crusaders from Western Europe brought moving images of Christ’s suffering back home with them. Once in Western Europe they would become a centerpiece of late medieval and renaissance Catholicism which emphasized God’s compassionate co-suffering with humanity.

Here the celebrated icon painter Nikolaos Tzafouris, to whom this icon is attributed, has harmonized Eastern and Western ways of depicting this powerful subject matter. While Christ’s body conforms to Byzantine beauty standards and artistic conventions, the white veil that frames Mary’s face, and the way her red robe falls open to frame Christ’s body suggest the influence of Western European art.