01 Work, RELIGIOUS ART - Interpretation the bible, Fiorentino Rosso's Lamentation Of Christ, with Footnotes - #134

Fiorentino Rosso

Lamentation Of Christ

Oil on canvas

1530-th , 127×163 cm

Louvre Museum, Paris

This is the only easel painting that can be dated with certainty to Rosso's stay in France in 1530-40. The cushions beneath Christ's body bear the blue alerions on an orange background of the coat of arms of Constable Anne de Montmorency, from whose château at Ecouen the Pietà was taken to the Louvre in the late 18th century. The marks visible on the bodies of Christ and St John are due to an initial, reversed composition - vsible under X-ray photography - which Rosso had blacked out. 

This is the only surviving example of the religious works Rosso executed in France. More on this painting

The Lamentation of Christ is a very common subject in Christian art from the High Middle Ages to the Baroque. After Jesus was crucified, his body was removed from the cross and his friends mourned over his body. This event has been depicted by many different artists.

Lamentation works are very often included in cycles of the Life of Christ, and also form the subject of many individual works. One specific type of Lamentation depicts only Jesus' mother Mary cradling his body. These are known as Pietà, pity.  More on The Lamentationof Christ

Giovanni Battista di Jacopo (8 March 1495 in Gregorian style, or 1494 according to the calculation of times in Florence where the year began on 25 March – 14 November 1540), known as Rosso Fiorentino (meaning "red Florentine" in Italian), or Il Rosso, was an Italian Mannerist painter, in oil and fresco, belonging to the Florentine school.

Born in Florence with the red hair that gave him his nickname, Rosso first trained in the studio of Andrea del Sarto. In late 1523, Rosso moved to Rome, where he was exposed to the works of Michelangelo, Raphael, and other Renaissance artists, resulting in the realignment of his artistic style.

Fleeing Rome after the Sacking of 1527, Rosso eventually went to France where he secured a position at the court of Francis I in 1530, remaining there until his death. Together with Francesco Primaticcio, Rosso was one of the leading artists to work at the Chateau Fontainebleau as part of the "First School of Fontainebleau", spending much of his life there. 


Rosso's reputation, along those of other stylized late Renaissance Florentines, was long out of favour in comparison to other more naturalistic and graceful contemporaries, but has revived considerably in recent decades. That his masterpiece is in a small city, away from the tourist track, was a factor in this, especially before the arrival of photography. His poses are certainly contorted, and his figures often appear haggard and thin, but his work has considerable power. More on Fiorentino Rosso

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