Three Studies for the Dead Christ

These Three Studies for the Dead Christ by Andrea Mantegna, held in the British Museum, are preparatory drawings that relate to his famous Dead Christ painting (now in the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan) — one of the most startling and innovative images in the history of Western art. The Brera painting's unprecedented foreshortening, showing Christ's body viewed from the feet with the soles prominently displayed, was a tour de force of perspective that challenged artistic conventions. These studies reveal Mantegna's working process as he developed the radical composition, exploring different angles and positions for the prone figure.

The studies demonstrate Mantegna's extraordinary draughtsmanship and his rigorous approach to perspectival foreshortening. Each study explores the dead body from a slightly different viewpoint, revealing the analytical, almost scientific method by which he developed the final composition's extreme foreshortening — one of the most celebrated technical achievements in Renaissance art.