PALMA GIOVANE
(b. 1548, Venezia, d. 1628, Venezia)

The Dead Christ with Two Angels

c. 1600
Oil on canvas, 65 x 112 cm
Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest

In this painting the angels hold the body of Christ from the side, an arrangement customary ever since Giovanni Bellini. The motif of the left arm, twisted anteriorly, is taken from the Pietà of Michelangelo, left incomplete in 1553, that Palma had seen in Rome and that later was taken to the Cathedral in Florence.