Altarpiece
by BRONZINO, Agnolo, Oil on wood
This image is a digital reconstruction of the probable original appearance of the altar wall of the Cappella di Eleonora in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, with Bronzino’s first version of the Lamentation (oil on wood, 268 x 173 cm, now in the Mus�e des Beaux-Arts, Besan�on) and his John the Baptist (oil on wood, 147 x 52 cm, now in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles).
Bronzino’s formal dependence on Michelangelo’s famous Pietà in St. Peter’s for the body of Christ might associate it with cold stone, thus reinforcing the figure’s deathlike traits.