Beweinung Christi

Tintoretto painted this scene of Christ's body mourned after the Crucifixion around 1555, in his early years as one of Venice's fastest and most sought-after painters. He worked at speed, laying figures out with small wax models under lamplight to fix his lighting before he touched the canvas, and that theatrical light, a pale body against darkness while the mourners lean in from the shadow, is what he became known for. This is a small, intimate version of a subject he would take on at much grander scale in Venice's churches. It now hangs in Mexico City, in the Museo Soumaya, part of the large collection of European art assembled by the businessman Carlos Slim.