The Dead Christ

For more than 200 years this small canvas went under other painters' names. The Borghese inventory of 1693 listed it under a painter recorded as Martiniani, and the inventories of 1700, 1790 and 1833 all gave it to Guercino. In 1893 the art historian Adolfo Venturi proposed Alessandro Tiarini of Bologna. Only in 1926 did Roberto Longhi recognise Marcantonio Bassetti from Verona, and the museum now dates it between 1613 and 1616, at the start of his years in Rome. Less than half a metre high, the picture holds a single instant. Nicodemus, in red, has just laid the body on the ground, and Christ's head rests against the Virgin. Old Joseph of Arimathea, in a turban, holds up the linen. Mary Magdalene lies almost flat, her face pressed to Christ's feet, with a covered jar of ointment beside her.