The lamentation over the dead Christ

Poussin was 63 when he painted this in Rome in 1657, and his hand had begun to shake. The tremor had appeared years earlier and was bad enough by then that he apologised for his handwriting in letters to his patrons in Paris, and his late pictures came slowly. His working method did not change. Visitors described a box he kept, in which he set out small wax models of his figures, draped them in cloth, and moved the sides of the box until the light fell where he wanted it. The lamentation is veiled in darkness, the body lit from one side, the moment taken after the embalming and before the burial. The National Gallery of Ireland bought it in 1882.