The Ancestors of Christ: Josias, Jeconiah and Shealtiel

Michelangelo spent roughly four years, from 1508, on his back atop the scaffolding in the Sistine Chapel, and the lunettes over the windows, where this family sits, were among the last stretches he painted, worked quickly and freely as the long commission neared its end. The subject comes from the list of names that opens Matthew's Gospel, the human ancestors linking the kings of Israel to Christ. Unlike the mighty prophets and nudes above them, these are ordinary people caught in dull waiting, a woman in a lilac dress holding a baby, a man resting beside her. They fill the lowest, most shadowed band of the ceiling, closest to the heads of the people standing below.