Pietà

1520s

Moretto da Brescia

Artist, Italian, 1498 - 1554

Two women and a man support the gray, lifeless body of a nearly nude man along a stone ledge in this vertical painting. The people have pale skin, except for the dead man at the center, Jesus, who has ash-white skin with dark shadows around his closed eyes. He has a long straight nose, and his lips are slightly parted. He has a brown beard, and his long, wavy hair falls away from his face. A white cloth wraps across his hips, and blood trickles from a gash over his right ribs and holes in his feet. A woman and man prop him up on either side, each holding Jesus by a limp arm, and each has a faint, gold halo encircling their heads. To our left, the woman holds her face close to his, her brows deeply furrowed and her mouth wide open, teeth showing. Her forehead, chin, and neck are covered by a white veil, worn under navy-blue cloak that covers her head and body. The cloak falls open over one arm and a bent knee to reveal her long-sleeved, lighter blue dress. On Jesus’s other side, a cleanshaven man with curly brown hair holds Jesus’s arm with both hands. The man’s eyes squint with tears as he tips his head toward Jesus. His pink lips are parted, and the corner of the mouth we can see is pulled down. He wears an emerald-green, long-sleeved tunic under a vivid red cloth that wraps around his right arm, waist, and left leg. The fourth and final person is a woman sitting on the ground, her arms wrapped tightly around Jesus’s crossed ankles. She sits with one foot tucked under her body and the other leg out straight. Waist-length, wavy, auburn-brown hair falls freely over her shoulders and across her face, but we can see her downturned, open mouth and nearly closed eyes. She wears a rose-pink dress, cinched at the waist. A brown cloth wraps around her waist and right leg. A cylindrical, lidded, white jar sits on the dirt ground nearby. The group is arranged in front a thigh-high stone ledge, except for the man in green and red, who steps into what is presumably the coffin. A rocky outcropping to our right has a cave-like opening with grasses and growth along the top. The landscape beyond has a dirt path winding between pine-green hills dotted with trees. Two slate-blue buildings perch atop one hill. White clouds float across the blue sky above.

Media Options

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The Pietà or lamentation over the dead Christ is not a scene from the Gospels. Rather, it was a medieval invention that translated the pathos of the Passion into a picture, an image to elicit an emotional response from the worshipper.

The Virgin, Saint John the Evangelist, and Mary Magdalene have assembled at Christ's tomb and hold up his gray, lifeless body against the marble sarcophagus. Behind them is the dark mouth of the rock cut tomb, and beyond it opens a verdant river landscape. Moretto has frozen the mourners in their awkward poses, their strain fueling the anguished pitch of the image. By contrast, the disposition of Christ's body is almost balletic. It stands out pale against the deep colors of the mourners' robes. Moretto's palette is rich but acerbic, darkening to iron-gray in the shadows.

Although Moretto had absorbed the styles of the Venetians, especially their brilliant experiments with color and light, this intensely emotional Pietà, which must have been intended as an altarpiece, could only have been created in the sincere religious atmosphere of a provincial site like Brescia, so distant in spirit from the secular, cosmopolitan city of Venice.

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 22

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on panel

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 175.8 × 98.5 cm, 116 kg (69 3/16 × 38 3/4 in., 255.734 lb.)
    framed: 206.06 × 129.06 × 7.62 cm (81 1/8 × 50 13/16 × 3 in.)

  • Accession

    1952.2.10

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

George Francis Wyndham, 4th Earl of Egremont [d. 1845], Orchard Wyndham, Somerset, England; life interest inherited by his widow, Jane Roberts Wyndham, Countess of Egremont [d. 1876], Orchard Wyndham; by inheritance to William Wyndham [d. 1914], Orchard Wyndham; (Wyndham [Egremont] sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 26 November 1892);[1] Sir Francis Cook, 1st Bt. [1817-1901], Doughty House, Richmond, Surrey; by inheritance to his son, Sir Frederick Lucas Cook, 2nd Bt. [1844-1920], Doughty House; by inheritance to his son, Sir Herbert Frederick Cook, 3rd Bt. [1868-1939], Doughty House; by inheritance to his son, Sir Francis Ferdinand Maurice Cook, 4th Bt. [1907-1978], Doughty House, and Cothay Manor, Somerset;[2] (Francis A. Drey, London); sold February 1947 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1952 to NGA.
[1] See 9 June 1988 letter from Martha Hepworth at the Getty Provenance Index, in NGA curatorial files.
[2] The record of the sale to the Kress Foundation (see note 3) states that the painting is from "the collection of the late Sir Herbert Cook of Richmond (Surrey) England." The 4th Bt. inherited the Cook collection and managed its dispersal after World War II with the trustees of the Cook estate.
[3] Drey sold five Cook paintings to the Kress Foundation, including the Moretto (bill of sale dated 18 February 1947; copy in NGA curatorial files). See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1635.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1909

  • National Loan Exhibition, Grafton Galleries, London, 1909-1910, no. 80, repro.

Bibliography

1932

  • Brockwell, Maurice W. Abridged Catalogye of the Pictures at Doughty House, Richmond, Surrey, in the Collection of Sir Herbert Cook. London, 1932: 184.

1951

  • Einstein, Lewis. Looking at Italian Pictures in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1951: 96-97, repro.

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection Acquired by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation 1945-1951. Introduction by John Walker, text by William E. Suida. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1951: 112, no. 46, repro.

1952

  • Frankfurter, Alfred M. "Interpreting Masterpieces: Twenty-four Paintings from the Kress Collection." Art News Annual 16 (1952): 97, repro. 94

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 197, repro.

1961

  • Walker, John, Guy Emerson, and Charles Seymour. Art Treasures for America: An Anthology of Paintings & Sculpture in the Samuel H. Kress Collection. London, 1961: 102, repro. pl. 94, color repro. pl. 95.

1962

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. Treasures from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1962: 30, color repro.

1963

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 152, repro.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 94.

1966

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 1:186, color repro.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 83, repro.

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XV-XVI Century. London, 1968: 91-92, fig. 220.

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. Central Italian and North Italian Schools. 3 vols. London, 1968: 1:279.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 246, repro.

1979

  • Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:336-337; 2:pl. 245.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 223, no. 276, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 285, repro.

1992

  • National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 96, repro.

2004

  • Danziger, Elon. "The Cook Collection: Its Founder and Its Inheritors." The Burlington Magazine 146, no. 1216 (July 2004): 451.

  • Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 92, no. 67, color repro.

Wikidata ID

Q3685127

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