Pietà at the Foot of the Cross

This Pietà presents the main characters in this passage from the Passion: St John, receiving the dead body of Christ, the Virgin Mary in the centre and Mary Magdalene kissing the wounds of the Saviour. The elegant figures standing in the foreground keep their composure in spite of the dramatic quality of the scene. Their categorical presence and the delicate sfumato of their volumes are the two main traits of Benson's painting, derived from his Lombard origins, which he combines with the meticulous technique and the models characterising Flemish taste. The Burial of Christ is depicted on the right, behind this scene, literally inspired by Dürer's print from the Small Passion series. The simultaneous presence of both episodes in the same work is linked to the tradition of primitive Flemish painters that in this context seems archaic.

The balanced composition is enveloped in an atmosphere of stillness, rendered by means of a combination of warm and cold shades in a rich range of colours. At the feet of bluish mountains in the background rises the celestial Jerusalem, which has been transferred to a Northern European environment, as revealed by the architecture and the greenness of the countryside. The original format of this panel was vertical, showing its characters full length.