Dead Christ mourned by angels

Paris Bordone was a Venetian painter, a pupil of Titian, who worked across Northern Italy and also in France during the mid-sixteenth century. His Dead Christ Mourned by Angels — assigned to c.1600 — draws on the Venetian tradition of the Pietà as developed by Bellini, Titian, and Michelangelo, translating the subject into the warmer, more lyrical key of Venetian colour. The subject was among the most emotionally demanding in Christian art, requiring the painter to convey grief and love simultaneously. Bordone's treatment would combine his Titian-derived chromatic richness with a compositional clarity derived from his study of Central Italian painting during his travels.

The dead Christ is supported or laid out horizontally, the angels around him caught in attitudes of grief. Venetian handling — warm glazes, rich shadows, the colour built up in layers over a warm ground — characterises Bordone's technique. The background is likely dark or atmospheric, focusing attention on the figures.