The Entombment of Christ

The Gospel of John says that the notice Pontius Pilate had fixed to the cross was written in Hebrew, Greek and Latin. Martin Johann Schmidt, known as the Kremser Schmidt, dropped that sheet on the ground in the lower left corner of this small picture, where its three scripts are still legible beside the crown of thorns. Above it, two bearded old men in turbans lay the body of Christ on the stone tomb. The Virgin has fainted against a young man behind them. At the right a young woman bends her face to Christ's feet, and blood drips from the cloth in her hand into a basin. On a distant hill stand the three empty crosses. He painted the scene around 1780 on a copper plate only 33 centimetres wide, and the Belvedere also owns his Adoration of the Magi on a plate of the same size, dated 1784.