The Lamentation

Andrea Vaccaro was a major Neapolitan painter of the seventeenth century who moved from an early Caravaggesque style toward the softer classicism of Guido Reni and Bolognese painting. This 1652 Lamentation over the dead Christ was a subject he treated repeatedly, reflecting the intense emotional piety of Counter-Reformation Naples. Vaccaro ran one of the largest workshops in Naples and trained numerous students.

The oil on canvas combines Caravaggesque dramatic lighting with the softer, more idealized figure types of Bolognese classicism. The pale flesh of the dead Christ is rendered with careful anatomical study, set against darker tones of mourning figures.