Bethlehem Mourns Children Killed by Herod

Duccio di Buoninsegna's Bethlehem Mourns Children Killed by Herod presents the Massacre of the Innocents' aftermath from the predella series of Christ's childhood narrative. The lamentation of the mothers of Bethlehem over their slaughtered infant children was among the most emotionally extreme subjects in Christian art, and Duccio's small predella panel concentrates the collective grief into a compact composition of remarkable emotional force. The wailing women, the small bodies, the soldiers' receding figures — Duccio's ability to convey extreme emotion through limited figure positions influenced all subsequent Italian treatments of this subject.

Egg tempera on poplar panel with burnished gold ground. Duccio layers translucent glazes to build subtle tonal modulations, while his expressive figural groupings convey collective grief through gesture and posture with remarkable economy.