Christ in the Tomb

The Marquis Campana ran the Monte di Pietà, the papal pawnbank in Rome, and used its funds to build the largest private collection in Europe. He was arrested in 1857, sentenced the following year, and his property was confiscated. Napoleon III bought more than 10,000 pieces of it in 1861, put them on show in Paris at the Palais de l'Industrie, and in 1863 split the collection between the Louvre and museums in the provinces. This small panel arrived that way and still carries both of its numbers, Campana 306 and Louvre MI 481. It is one of three predella boards from an altarpiece nobody has identified, probably dedicated to Saint Jerome, and the other two show miracles of Jerome. Perugino painted them in the early 1470s, on poplar, over a gold ground. It hangs now in Room 709 of the Denon wing, the column and the ladder of the Passion rising on the gold behind the marble sarcophagus.