The canvas The Lamentation of Christ was painted by the artist Jacopo Palma the Younger. He was one of the last representatives of the Venetian Cinquecento — the Italian art of the 16th century. Famous sculptors and painters worked at that time: Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Rafael Santi and Titian.

Jacopo Palma the Younger was born in Venice. His father was the artist Antonio Nigreti, from whom the future painter received his first lessons. He later became a student of Titian. In 1576, the great artist did not have time to complete his last work, Pietà, which is why it was finished by Palma the Younger. He painted the flying angel with the torch and the masonry at the top of the picture, and also added another sentence to the teacher’s signature: “What Titian did not finish, Palma completed with reverence, dedicating the work to the Lord”.

In the 1580s, the art of Palma the Younger was influenced by that of the Renaissance artist Jacopo Tintoretto. After the latter’s death in 1594, the painter was considered one of the leading authors in Venice. He also worked in Urbino and Rome, where he created paintings on religious and mythological topics.

Between 1600-1610, Jacopo Palma the Younger created the painting The Lamentation of Christ. It was based on an episode from the burial cycle in the Bible. It follows the taking down of Jesus Christ’s body from the cross, after which begins the scene of His Entombment. Palma the Younger depicted the main characters of this subject: the Virgin Mary, John the Evangelist, Mary Magdalene and Mary — the wife of Cleopas the Apostle. At the head of Jesus, you can see Joseph of Arimathea, a secret disciple of Christ. It was he who brought the shroud — the linen cloth into which the body of Jesus was wrapped. Fragments of the white fabric are visible near Christ’s shoulder and on His body.

In this picture, Jacopo Palma the Younger, as a real representative of the Venetian school, made colour the main expressive means. He used a combination of colour spots — red, blue, yellow and white. They harmoniously combine with each other, but, at the same time, the contrast adds additional drama to the narrative.

Before the 1917 revolution, the painting The Lamentation of Christ was in the collection of the legist Boris Chicherin on the estate of Karaul, Tambov Governorate. Then it ended up in the Tambov Ethnography Museum, and in 1961 the painting entered the collection of the Tambov Picture Gallery. In 2003, when it was being prepared for an exhibition in Moscow, during the restoration they found Jacopo Palma the Younger’s signature.