The Lamentation of Christ

Defendente Ferrari's Lamentation of Christ belongs to the Piedmontese master's output of devotional panels for patrons in the Piedmont region of northwestern Italy. Ferrari operated in the Chieri and Turin area, maintaining a conservative late Gothic figure style that blended local Piedmontese traditions with influences from the Flemish paintings that had penetrated northern Italy through the Savoy court's connections. His Lamentation scenes are notable for their emotional intensity and the expressive distortion of grieving figures, particularly the mourning women whose faces convey genuine anguish through the northern European tradition of affective piety.

The Lamentation displays Ferrari's characteristic emotional intensity, with the mourning figures expressing grief through dramatic gestures and expressions. His Lombard-Piedmontese style combines Leonardesque sfumato with raw emotional power.