The Entombment of Christ

Title: The Entombment of Christ

Artist: Sisto Badalocchio

Medium: Oil on canvas

Size: tbd.

Date: 1610

Location: Galleria Borghese, Rome.

Mark 15:46-47 and placed it in a tomb cut out of rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where he was laid.

Though no direct participation in the preparation of Christ’s body by the women is mentioned in the Gospel, Mark still stresses the importance of their knowledge about those events. They are not participants, but rather witnesses.

This important painting, ‘The Entombment of Christ’, dating from the first decade of the 17th century, is attributed to Sisto Badalocchio. Here human participation in the event has become the main focus. A comparison with Raphael's Deposition (also in the Galleria Borghese), which inspired it, reveals how the painter insisted on the emotions as reflected in natural movements, and was influenced both by Dürer's prints and antique sculpture.

Sisto Badalocchio Rosa (c.1581 - c.1647) was an Italian painter and engraver of the Bolognese School. Born in Parma, he worked first under Agostino Carracci in Bologna, then Annibale Carracci, in Rome. Annibale's death in 1609 precipitated Badalocchio's return to Emilia. There in 1613 he created his most important work, the frescoes in the cupola and pendentives of San Giovanni Evangelista, Reggio Emilia, a reinterpretation of Correggio's work in the church of the same name in Parma.