The Entombment

Like many artists of his time, Andrea Mantegna was fascinated with ancient Greece and Rome, an interest that is reflected in the sculptural style that permeates the artist's œuvre. This print was likely executed after his move to Mantua, where he worked as the court painter to the Gonzaga family. The artist's first experiment with drypoint, this image depicts the burial of Jesus Christ in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. Christ's body, supported by a group of grief-stricken figures, droops horizontally across the left foreground, as Golgotha looms in the background. The positioning of St. John, who stands to the far right of the tomb with his hands clasped in the air, was adopted by Albrecht Dürer in an engraved Crucifixion scene of 1508.