The Dead Christ

Less than 18 centimetres high, this was the right half of a folding diptych that Ercole de' Roberti made for Eleonora of Aragon, Duchess of Ferrara, for her private prayer. Its partner showed the birth of Christ. This side shows him just after his death. Two angels hold the body upright on the edge of an open tomb, the arms hanging limp. Beside the tomb kneels Saint Jerome, the hermit scholar, with his lion, and he raises a stone to strike his own chest in penance. Higher up the hill Saint Francis kneels to receive the wounds of Christ in his own hands, and on a far hilltop stands Calvary with its crosses. The two halves stayed together in the Costabili collection in Ferrara in the 19th century, then with Sir Charles and Lady Eastlake in London, and came to the National Gallery in 1894.