Full title | The Dead Christ |
---|---|
Artist | Ercole de' Roberti |
Artist dates | active 1479; died 1496 |
Group | The Este Diptych |
Date made | about 1490 |
Medium and support | Tempera on wood |
Dimensions | 17.8 x 13.5 cm |
Acquisition credit | Bought, 1894 |
Inventory number | NG1411.2 |
Location | Not on display |
Collection | Main Collection |
This little picture formed the right side of a diptych (a work of two parts). It was joined with central hinges to The Adoration of the Shepherds. Ercole made this for the Duchess of Ferrara, Eleonora of Aragon, when he was court painter at Ferrara. Eleonora’s personal prayer centred on the Corpus Christi (Latin for ‘body of Christ’), so this imagery is appropriate. Christ is shown nearly naked, just after his death. Two angels prop up his limp corpse and we can see marks from the nails of the Crucifixion on his hands. A faintly sketched image of Calvary, the site of the Crucifixion, appears on the hill; Christ’s slumped body is being removed from the central cross. Saint Jerome – identifiable by his symbol, the lion – kneels next to Christ’s tomb. He holds a rock, ready to strike his chest. This was an act of penitence which in this context was probably supposed to encourage humility and self denial.
This is the left-hand panel of a diptych, a painting made up of two panels, joined with a hinge so that it could be opened and closed like a book. The right hand panel shows The Adoration of the Shepherds. It was made for the Duchess of Ferrara, Eleonora of Aragon.
Christ is shown after his death, propped up on the edge of his marble tomb by two angels. He is naked apart from a loin cloth and a crown of thorns on his head. The wounds from the nails of the Crucifixion are visible on his lifeless hands. The yellow-white skin of his corpse contrasts with the tanned skin of the kneeling Saint Jerome, whose athletic body is covered only partially by a red cloak. As he contemplates Christ’s body, Jerome clutches a stone in his right hand, ready to beat his chest, inspired here by Christ’s suffering. He is accompanied by a small lion, the animal whom, according to legend, he tamed when living in the wilderness. His pose, with right hand raised up, may be based upon Ercole’s fellow Ferrarese artist Cosimo Tura’s Saint Jerome.
At the top left, painted in faint, minute brushstrokes is Calvary, the site where Jesus was crucified; his drooping dead body is being removed from the central cross for burial in his tomb. As in the painting’s pair, The Adoration of the Shepherds, the miniature scene in the landscape shows the event that preceded the main image. Saint Francis kneels on the middle plateau, raising the palms of his hands towards the heavens. Saint Francis is said to have meditated upon the Crucifixion with such piety that he too was afflicted with the wounds of the Cross, known as the stigmata. Golden rays painted with gold leaf emanate from the hands and feet of the crucified Christ, directly striking the saint’s palms and transferring the wounds of the Cross to him.
The emphasis on Christ’s dead body mirrors the left-hand panel, where the naked body of the infant Christ is the focus of adoration. Images of Christ standing or seated in his open tomb were very popular in Italy in the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, and were known as the ‘Imago Pietatis’ (‘image of pity’) or the Man of Sorrows. They were based upon an image from Byzantium, the Eastern Christian empire. Ercole’s version, where Christ is supported by two angels, is similar to those by Giovanni Bellini working in nearby Venice. Meditation upon Christ’s suffering and death were supposed to help worshippers develop an emotional and personal connection with him. Usually, images of the dead Christ did not include landscape backgrounds, but here the hillside is a continuation from the left-hand diptych panel, and the presence of Saint Jerome and Saint Francis offer examples of saints whose prayer focused upon Christ’s suffering.
The original owner of the diptych was the Duchess of Ferrara, Eleonora of Aragon, whom we know directed her prayer in particular towards the Corpus Christi (‘the body of Christ’) celebrated in the Christian tradition at Mass through the Eucharist. When Eleonora held this diptych in her hand and contemplated Christ’s birth and death, his body as a child and as an adult, her thumb may have pressed upon the inscription of his name carved into the triangular pediment of the lid of his elegant marble tomb.
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The Este Diptych
The Adoration of the Shepherds and The Dead Christ were originally joined with hinges to form a diptych – an object made up of two painted panels – that could open and close, creating a visual prayer book. It probably belonged to Eleonora of Aragon, Duchess of Ferrara. An inventory of her possessions records just such a work, covered in cherry-red velvet; traces of red velvet remain on the back of these two pictures. The images portray the beginning and end of Christ’s life but the focus is on his body.
Eleonora was particularly devoted to the Corpus Christi (‘the body of Christ’). She played a prominent role in the annual feast that celebrated the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper, when Christ instructed his disciples to drink wine and eat bread in commemoration of his blood and body. She was closely connected to a religious group that focused their prayer upon the Corpus Christi and was buried in their church in Ferrara.
The Adoration of the Shepherds and The Dead Christ were originally joined together by a central hinge to create a diptych. It is very likely that this diptych was made for Eleonora of Aragon, duchess of the northern Italian city of Ferrara. Ercole de‘ Roberti was the official court painter at Ferrara and at the time that this work was made he was busy painting murals for the Castello Vecchio in Ferrara. A list of Eleonora’s possessions, drawn up in 1493, records that she owned a diptych showing the birth and death of Christ which could be opened and closed like a book. Traces of red velvet remain on the back of the panels, and according to the inventory the diptych was covered with cherry-red velvet as well as gilded silver ornaments, now lost.
The diptych was a precious object as well as an object for religious contemplation. Its external beauty would have made it a suitable object for a duchess to take with her when travelling or to keep open on a table in her private room. The small scale of the panels, the size of a paperback book, reflect the fashion in courtly circles for miniature painting – highly valued for the skill required to paint detail on such a small scale.
The images within the diptych reflected Eleonora’s religious concerns. Jesus is shown at the very beginning of his life on one side and after his death on the other. In both scenes he is naked and the focus of the images is his body. Eleonora’s personal prayer centred on the Corpus Christi (’the body of Christ' in Latin) which was the celebration of Jesus’s institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper. This was when he asked his disciples to remember him after his death by eating bread and drinking wine: his body and his blood. In Catholic tradition the bread and wine consumed at the Eucharist transformed into the body and blood of Christ. Eleonora was closely connected to a religious group, the confraternity of the Corpus Christi, and she was buried in their church in Ferrara. She also took a high-profile role at the annual procession that celebrated the Corpus Christi. Eleonora owned many pictures that depicted Christ’s life and Passion and her private collection included works by Mantegna, Giovanni Bellini and Ercole.


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