Pieta with Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea

In 1495 Perugino painted a large Lamentation for the nuns of Santa Chiara in Florence, crowded with mourners. In the same years he made this much smaller panel, which takes the subject down to three figures against a black ground. Nicodemus, in the green cloak, holds Christ upright on the edge of the tomb, his eyes wet. On the right stands Joseph of Arimathea, the rich follower who gave up his own new tomb for the burial, with his hands folded. Painted in gold letters along the marble is the Latin Sepulcrum Christi, the tomb of Christ, and at the far end Perugino's signature, Petrus Perusinus pinxit, Peter of Perugia painted this. The Clark Art Institute thinks it may have stood above the altar of a private chapel. Later in its life the paint was lifted off its original wooden panel and laid onto fabric.