Spandrel: Josiah, Jeconiah and Shealtiel

Above the lunette of Josiah, Jeconiah and Shealtiel the vault curves down into a triangular cell, a spandrel, and Michelangelo filled it with more of Christ's ancestors. It sits next to the panel of the Flood and was among the first he painted, early in the first campaign. No names are written up here. The group is usually taken for Jeconiah with his wife and their son Shealtiel.

They are not seated on benches like the figures in the lunettes below. They lie on the bare ground against a dark, night-like background. Jeconiah, barefoot in front, sleeps half reclining, turned away from us, in a yellow shirt and white breeches tight at the ankle that stand out sharply against the dark. Behind him his wife sits on a green pallet, a white shawl over her head, and holds her son with her face pressed to his. The museum links their attitude to the words of Saint Paul, as the Letter to the Hebrews was then read, calling the forefathers pilgrims and strangers on their way to the promised land. The whole scene took just two days of fresco, its design pounced onto the plaster from a cartoon, as in all eight spandrels.