Benozzo Gozzoli
Deposition from the Cross, 1497, oil on canvas
The painting, acquired by Herbert Horne in 1907, is the final work executed by Benozzo Gozzoli. It remained unfinished at the death of the artist, in Pistoia, where he had taken refuge in order to flee from an outbreak of the plague.
The crowded composition is dominated by the figure of Christ being taken down from the cross, on whose sides can be recognised the figures of Mary, John, Mary Magdalene, Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, and the pious women who spread out the shroud. In the background there appears the episode of the burial of Christ.
The work is one of the earliest examples of an oil painting on canvas, and attests to the variety of technical experiments accomplished by artists during the final decades of the fifteenth century.
