Lunette: Zerubbabel, Abiud and Eliakim

Three names stand on the tablet, Zerubbabel, Abiud and Eliakim, but nothing in the painting says who is who. Michelangelo gave the ancestors of Christ no crowns, no labels and no attributes, and the museum itself notes that every attempt to match the names to the figures has failed. So in this lunette scholars simply describe what is there. A woman on the left and a man on the right sit bent in profile, each turning their head toward us, each with a child, a deliberately mirrored pair.

The woman pulls her child close in a protective gesture, her legs under a yellow cloak, the child wrapped in red and bound with strips of white gauze. Seen close up, the figures look like powerful sketches. The edge of one day's plaster runs right along her back, which shows that her outline was already drawn on the wall before the colour went on. The man on the right is darker, wrapped in a violet cloak, and his wide green hat with its yellow band was added last, on dry plaster. The lunette belongs to the first campaign, near the entrance end of the chapel.