The Entombment (c. 1596): Art, History and Details

The Entombment (c. 1596) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Giovanni de' Vecchi (Italian, 1536–1615).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

By the end of the 1500s, Michelangelo’s treatment of the nude male had permeated artistic practice. Some artists (today called Mannerists) began to stray from the master’s grounding in human anatomy, emphasizing instead the expressive potential that Michelangelo brought to bear on the human form. To make an emotional impact, Giovanni de’ Vecchi created fluid figures with exaggerated proportions, such as the central figure of Christ that appears here. De’ Vecchi used pen and purplish watercolor to render the forms of the dead Christ surrounded by Saint John the Apostle, Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, the grief-stricken Virgin Mary, Saint Mary Magdalene (at Christ’s feet), and their companions, who adoringly convey his body to the tomb in the upper left. This drawing was preparatory for an altarpiece for the church of Santa Prassede in Rome.

Object facts

• Title: The Entombment
• Date: c. 1596
• Creator attribution: Giovanni de' Vecchi (Italian, 1536–1615)
• Culture: Italy
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: Pen and brown ink, brush and purple-pink wash with admixtures of white, and brush and brown wash, with graphite underdrawing; squared for transfer with graphite
• Dimensions: Sheet: 20.2 x 14.7 cm (7 15/16 x 5 13/16 in.); Secondary Support: 25.7 x 21.3 cm (10 1/8 x 8 3/8 in.)
• Collection: DR - Italian
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 2017.5

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• P. Tosini, "Rivedendo Giovanni de' Vecchi," in Storia dell'arte, 82, 1994, p. 323, note 89
• A. Pinelli, "Pittura e Controriforma, 'Convenienza' e miticismo in Giovanni de' Vecchi," in Associazione di ricerca e documentazione per la Storia dell'arte. Ricerche di storia dell'arte. Rome: Bulzoni editore, VI, 1977, p. 58, cat. no. 5, fig. 21
• Knorn-Ezernieks, Nicola. Giovanni de' Vecchi: seine Stellung in der römischen Malerei um 1600 (Hildesheim-Zurich-New York, 2013., pp. 247, 330-32, cat. no. 63, illustrated

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.