Entombment
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Authors
Giovanni della Robbia and Workshop
Date
Type
image
Language
Keyword
Entombment , Christ , Lamentation , PietÃ
Alternative Title
Abstract
This relief of the Entombment of Christ sits over a doorway in the transept of San Salvatore al Monte in Florence. Surmounting the scene are the arms of Castello Quaratesi, whose death in 1508 this work commemorates. Giovanni della Robbia's workshop was more known for glazed terracotta, but this relief was instead painted after the terracotta was fired. Perhaps because of its inaccessible high location and because it is indoors, the colours survive much better than for many cold painted terracotta works. (Glaze is much more durable, and so even glazed works exposed to the elements survive in their original brilliance.) The scene has been arranged taking into account the viewers' point of view from below: Christ's body is tilted down so as to be more visible, and as all of the figures crowd around the tomb to pray and look upon him, they also are facing downward toward the viewers, their faces, which express different types of mourning, serving as a model for devotion. Photograph(s) licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Description
San Salvatore al Monte, Florence
Citation
Giancarlo Gentilini, I Della Robbia (Florence: Cantini, 1992), II: 282-3.