Christ Carried to the Tomb

This painting, before its original arched top was cut off, once decorated a family altar in the Venetian church of San Francesco della Vigna. The painting shows Christ being carried to the tomb, and in the foreground, the three Maries and the Virgin, who swoons with inconsolable grief. Tintoretto was hugely prolific as a painter of large-scale canvases for Venice’s churches and lay confraternities in their campaign of active spiritual renewal, and this picture shares with many of them the effects of flickering candlelight and the mood of deep religiosity.