Lunette: Uzziah, Jotham and Ahaz

This lunette was painted at speed and almost without second thoughts. The restorers found a single change, behind the woman on the right, where a shape Michelangelo had begun was turned into shadow. The paint is liquid and transparent, laid on quickly, and the child half-hidden on that side is handled so briefly that it has been described as a drawing made with the brush.

The tablet names three kings of Judah, OZIAS, IOATHAM and ACHAZ, Uzziah, Jotham and Ahaz. The relaxed man on the left, in a wide green cloak over a yellow tunic and a violet cap tied with purple ribbons, is usually taken for Jotham with his son Ahaz, and he looks, lips parted, at the spot the boy behind him is pointing to. On the right a woman with a veiled head draws a deep orange cloak around her, grave as an ancient statue. The child in front of her is modelled firmly, like the little child-spirits carved on Roman sarcophagi, and a figure in almost the same pose sits among the nudes in the background of Michelangelo's Doni Tondo in Florence. The lunette belongs to the first campaign.