Lamentation over the Dead Christ

On 23 September 1856 Otto Mündler, a German connoisseur who toured Italy buying pictures for the National Gallery in London, walked through the Palazzo Panciatichi in Florence and noted in his diary a charming little Pietà by Carlo Crivelli, signed and dated 1485. It is the oldest record of this panel, and the family's name has stayed attached to it. Crivelli packs four figures behind the edge of the tomb. Mary holds her dead son upright, her face against his, the Magdalene presses close below, and on the right Saint John throws back his head and cries out with his mouth wide open. John's fingers are locked with Christ's, one hand tense, the other rigid in death. Above them hangs a swag of apples, pears, cherries and aubergines. Around 1901 the panel was sold to Edward Perry Warren, a Boston-born collector living in England, and a Milan customs stamp of that year is still on the back. In 1902 he sold it to the Boston museum for 1,000 pounds.