Pietà of Pala di San Pietro di Muralto

Carlo Crivelli created this Pietà as part of the Pala di San Pietro di Muralto around 1488, one of his major polyptych altarpieces in the Marches. The Pietà, showing the dead Christ mourned by the Virgin and saints, was the emotional climax of such altarpiece ensembles. Crivelli's treatment brings intense emotional expression to this devotional subject while maintaining his distinctive decorative vocabulary. Carlo Crivelli was a Venetian-trained painter who spent most of his career in the Marche, the central Italian region east of the Apennines, where he executed altarpieces for churches in Ascoli Piceno, Camerino, and other provincial centers.

Tempera and gold on panel with Crivelli's powerful combination of emotional intensity and ornamental richness. The angular figure of the dead Christ and the mourners' grief are rendered with his characteristically sharp linear definition.