by Tom Gurney
Tom Gurney BSc (Hons) is an art history expert with over 20 years experience
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Email: tomgurney1@gmail.com / Phone: +44 7429 011000
The Entombment of Christ by Caravaggio: The Vatican Deposition
Christ's body is being lowered towards a stone. Two men carry his weight, while three women gather behind them in different forms of grief. Caravaggio's painting is often called The Entombment of Christ, but the Vatican Museums title it The Deposition and describe the pictured moment more precisely: Christ is placed on the Anointing Stone before burial, not shown already inside the tomb.[1]
The canvas was made for the Vittrice family chapel in Santa Maria in Vallicella, Rome, and now belongs to the Vatican Museums. Its strong downward movement, the projecting stone and the close group of six figures give the viewer a place at the edge of the action. Understanding that relationship is more useful than forcing one English title to settle every stage of the Passion story.[1]
Caravaggio in context
The Cardsharps
c.1595Calling of Saint Matthew
1599–1600Supper at Emmaus
1601At a Glance
- ArtistMichelangelo Merisi, called Caravaggio (1571–1610)
- TitlesThe Deposition; also called The Entombment of Christ
- Dateabout 1600–04 in Vatican Museums publication material[2]
- Mediumoil on canvas[2]
- Dimensionsapproximately 300 × 203 cm[2]
- CollectionVatican Museums, Pinacoteca, inventory MV 40386 in the museum's scholarly bulletin[3]
- Original destinationVittrice family chapel, Santa Maria in Vallicella (Chiesa Nuova), Rome[1]
- Pictured actionChrist is lowered onto the Anointing Stone in the presence of John, Nicodemus and three holy women[1]
Contents
- What Moment Is Painted?
- The Body, Bearers and Stone
- The Three Women and a Range of Grief
- The Viewer at the Edge of the Tomb
- Light, Weight and Composition
- What the Vatican's Diagnostic Study Found
- The Vittrice Chapel Commission
- From Rome to Paris and the Vatican Pinacoteca
- Titles, Copies and Interpretation
- Frequently Asked Questions
Look closer: The Entombment of Christ
The mourners and bearers press forward over the stone slab. Three details trace the passage from raised hands to the body and its precarious support.
123Details from The Entombment of Christ
Select a detail image to open the full-size gallery, then use the arrows to compare views.
The mourners above
Raised arms and lowered heads form opposed gestures of grief above the weight of Christ’s body.
Christ’s body
Christ lies diagonally across the bearers, with one arm hanging toward the stone below.
The stone and supporting hands
Hands support Christ at the knees and shoulder while his arm extends toward the sharp edge of the burial stone.
What Moment Is Painted?
The Vatican Museums state that the scene is neither the conventional removal of Christ from the cross nor his completed burial. John and Nicodemus lower the body onto the Anointing Stone, the slab associated with preparing him for the tomb. The sequence is precise: the body has been brought from the cross; the stone is reached; the burial itself remains to come.[1]
That intermediate moment gives the painting its tension. The two men have not finished bearing the weight, and the women have not finished mourning. The stone juts towards us at the base of the composition. Christ is both supported by living bodies and about to be placed on a cold, hard surface. Caravaggio makes the act of lowering visible through arms, hands and the direction of the whole group.
The picture compresses a large narrative into a cluster of six figures. We see no cross, full tomb or landscape to map every place in the Gospel sequence. The event is legible through the body and its bearers. A viewer must read the task being performed rather than scan a panorama for symbols.
That concentration also explains why the titles remain unsettled. Ferenc Veress's recent study places the painting at the intersection of Deposition, Lamentation and Entombment traditions: the bearers move Christ, the women mourn him and the stone anticipates his burial. This is an argument about what the composition permits a viewer to see, not a newly discovered title given by Caravaggio. The Vatican's Anointing Stone description remains the clearest account of the principal action, while Veress's reading explains why older and broader titles have endured.[1][12]
The painting is not a literal illustration of any one Gospel paragraph. John 19:38–42 names Joseph of Arimathea as the man who obtained Christ's body and Nicodemus as the bringer of burial spices; it does not place the apostle John among the men carrying the body. Caravaggio's youthful bearer therefore belongs to a pictorial joining of burial narrative and devotional Pietà. The Vatican's current account identifies him as John and the older bearer as Nicodemus. The distinction matters: a visitor can follow the museum's reading of the painted figures without mistaking every identification for a name supplied by the burial text.[1][7]
The Body, Bearers and Stone
Christ's body crosses the centre diagonally. His arm hangs down towards the stone and viewer. John supports the upper body; Nicodemus bears the weight below. The Vatican identifies both men and describes the stone as the one with which the sepulchre will be closed. Their work is physical: bent knees, gripping hands and a burden that cannot be represented as weightless if the moment is to feel real.[1]
The older bearer's name is not universally agreed. Dónal O'Connor, writing in an Oratorian scholarly journal, proposes Joseph of Arimathea instead of Nicodemus, partly because Joseph is central to the Gospel burial accounts. The Oratorians' former procurator, Edoardo Aldo Cerrato, also notes the Joseph identification as an alternative, while calling the figure Nicodemus himself. Neither argument supplies a contemporary caption by Caravaggio. The sound way to describe the man is to give the Vatican's identification and acknowledge the specialist disagreement.[5][8]
The forward stone is especially consequential. It has a sharp edge and strong mass, defining the lower boundary of the painting. Its projection brings the action into a viewer's space. One can imagine standing just beyond it, close enough to see where the body will rest. This does not make the spectator a literal seventh figure; it gives an architectural painting an active point of contact with a person before the altar.
The stone has also prompted different descriptions within Vatican scholarship. The collection page calls it both the Anointing Stone and the slab that will close the tomb. Antonio Paolucci, then director of the Vatican Museums, argued instead that it is the stone bed for washing and anointing the body, not the tomb's sealing lid. Both readings agree on the essential painted action: the body is being lowered before burial. Paolucci also connects the projecting corner to Psalm 118's rejected stone becoming the cornerstone. That scriptural association is an attributed interpretation of the painting, not a word or symbol written on the slab.[1][6]
The body is pale against dark clothing and space. That contrast does not isolate Christ from those who carry him. Their hands hold him; their movements follow his direction. The picture asks the viewer to notice the labour of care as well as the fact of death.
The Prado's account of the canvas notices a small but telling contact: Christ's lowered hand brushes the projecting slab. The touch is easy to miss when the entire diagonal is read simply as a body being carried away. Here it joins the figure to the stone before the bearers have released him. The Prado proposes a cornerstone meaning for the contact; that symbolic reading can be held beside the physical description without turning the slab's disputed practical function into a settled fact.[14]
The Three Women and a Range of Grief
The Vatican Museums identify the Virgin, Mary Magdalene and Mary of Cleophas among the figures. Mary of Cleophas raises her arms and eyes upward in a gesture of high tension. The others are more contained. The group therefore does not give grief one fixed expression.[1]
The upward gesture of Mary of Cleophas counterbalances the downward movement of Christ's body. Its shape draws the eye up through the painting without cancelling the weight below. A viewer can move between an appeal directed beyond the scene and the immediate human task of holding a body.
The women's presence also prevents the two bearers from making the picture a purely muscular demonstration. They witness the event, respond to it and give its physical action an emotional horizon. Their different gestures leave room for sorrow, disbelief, prayer and practical attention without requiring the article to assign a private thought to each face.
The Prado identifies a further contrast in their actions: Mary Magdalene dries her tears with a white handkerchief while the Virgin remains comparatively contained. That small act of wiping a face belongs to the same immediate world as the men's effort to hold and lower Christ. It makes mourning something the figures do, as well as something their expressions signify. Mary of Cleophas's open arms then have a sharper effect because the other responses are so close to the body and so restrained.[14]
The Viewer at the Edge of the Tomb
The painting was made for a family chapel altar, where a visitor would stand below the canvas. The stone's forward edge and the downward course of the body make that viewpoint important. The image does not simply depict a past scene at a safe distance; it lets the action seem to reach the space before it.[1]
The original chapel setting also gives the work a liturgical relation to an altar. The body of Christ is lowered close to the plane where a worshipper would focus attention. This is an interpretation of the placement and composition, not a surviving statement by Caravaggio explaining his intention. The Vatican record establishes the commission and original destination; the relation between painted stone and viewer can be tested by looking at the work.[1]
Art historian Georgia Wright made that relationship more specific in a 1978 study of the painting in its chapel setting. She argued that the action appears incomplete until the priest stands before the altar, as though ready to receive the descending body. At the elevation of the consecrated Host, the priest's gesture and the body in the image would be seen together. This is a reading of how the altarpiece functioned during Mass, not documentation of Caravaggio's private intention or a claim that the priest literally completes the Gospel scene. Wright examined the later copy in the chapel because the original had already been moved to the Vatican. Her method also shows why the copy is useful evidence for the picture's former position while remaining a different painted object.[15]
The chapel's surviving decoration makes the painted winding sheet especially worth noticing. Cerrato describes images of the Holy Shroud among its subjects, and Veress specifies stucco angels holding a representation of the Shroud of Turin. On Caravaggio's canvas the bright linen supports Christ and descends toward the stone. The chapel therefore supplied a setting in which visitors could encounter both a painted burial cloth and a sculpted reference to the Shroud. Their relationship is a contextual interpretation; the decoration does not prove that Caravaggio was instructed to reproduce the Turin relic in his sheet.[5][12]
In the present Vatican Pinacoteca, the painting is encountered in a museum room rather than its first chapel. The canvas still offers its close viewpoint, but information about its original placement helps explain why the front edge is so assertive.
Light, Weight and Composition
The figures form a downward diagonal, but Caravaggio does not let the eye fall straight out of the picture. The bearers' arms, the women's gestures and the angular stone create points of resistance. Each makes the viewer pause over the physical effort of lowering Christ.[1]
Light distinguishes the body, faces and selected cloth from a darker field. It gives the group volume without supplying a full architectural background. There is no need to claim that every bright area is a separate divine sign. The visible effect is enough: the body and the people caring for it become legible, while the space around them stays spare.
Vatican News describes a reddish preparation beneath Caravaggio's layers of colour. This helps explain why the painting's dark passages should be discussed as worked material, not as empty space behind the figures. Its account also points to a visual inheritance from Michelangelo's Pietà: the dead body's pose recalls an older, celebrated treatment of the subject even as Caravaggio gives the bearers an urgent physical task. The comparison is about a shared visual idea, not evidence that Caravaggio copied every contour of the sculpture.[10]
The canvas is about three metres high. Its size allows the bodies to approach human scale for a chapel viewer. The painting combines that scale with the concentrated design of a smaller work. Compare the Death of the Virgin, another large painting of mourning, to see how differently Caravaggio can arrange a dead body, witnesses and open space.
What the Vatican's Diagnostic Study Found
The Vatican Museums' description of its diagnostic publication identifies details that ordinary viewing may miss: the entrance to the tomb, Christ's hair and a fig plant, along with corrections in colour and volume, losses and pentimenti. The study used ultraviolet, infrared, radiographic and X-ray fluorescence methods to investigate the canvas from its surface into deeper layers. This is more specific than the general statement that science has examined the painting, but the short public description does not map each finding to an exact photographed mark.[4]
The findings matter for interpretation. The picture's familiar name, Entombment, can tempt a viewer to imagine a finished burial, yet the Vatican says Christ is being placed on the Anointing Stone. The newly described tomb entrance helps position that action in a wider space; it does not overturn the owner's reading of the principal moment. Hidden corrections also caution against treating the seemingly inevitable diagonal of bodies as an arrangement fixed from the first brushstroke.[1][4]
The Vittrice Chapel Commission
The Vatican Museums record that Girolamo Vittrice commissioned the painting for his family chapel in Santa Maria in Vallicella, also called the Chiesa Nuova, in Rome. This documentary setting is essential to the work. It was not first made for a general museum collection or an undefined private wall.[1]
The chapel had a history before Caravaggio's canvas. Cerrato's account for the Oratorians says Pietro Vittrice received a chapel there in 1577, with an earlier, now lost Pietà altarpiece. The chapel was remade from 1596 and finished in 1605 with decoration about Christ's death and burial. After Pietro died in 1600, his nephew Girolamo commissioned Caravaggio's replacement painting in his memory. This sequence gives the familiar commission a human and architectural context: the new picture continued an established chapel dedication while addressing its rebuilt setting.[5]
The Vatican's publication material gives an approximate date around 1600–04. That range should not be narrowed to a single year without stronger evidence. The work belongs among Caravaggio's mature Roman religious commissions, but approximate dating is appropriate when the current owner page does not offer a more precise completed-date record.[2]
The Oratorian account places the execution more narrowly in 1602–04. Those dates can be reported beside the broader Vatican publication range without pretending that either is a dated receipt for the finished painting. The family's patronage, the chapel's rebuilding and the date of the canvas are related but distinct events.[2][5]
Girolamo also had a plausible family connection to the painter's working circle. Veress records that he married Orinzia Orsi, sister of Prospero Orsi, a painter close to Caravaggio. Veress further notes that Girolamo collected Caravaggio paintings. This gives a more concrete social setting for the commission than a patron's surname alone: an Oratorian family chapel and a relative connected to the artist's circle meet in Girolamo. The marriage, however, is not a contract or proof that Prospero negotiated this particular altarpiece. The surviving chapel decision, rather than the family connection, is the firmer documentary link between Girolamo and the new painting.[11][12]
A dated Oratorian decision makes the upper end of that range more substantial. A 6 September 1604 record, transcribed in later scholarship, approves returning the chapel's older Pietà and wooden frame to Girolamo because he had had a new painting made by Caravaggio and the old frame would not serve it. The wording identifies Girolamo's initiative and shows that the new work was already being discussed by that date. It does not give the day Caravaggio finished painting, or establish that the new altarpiece had already been installed. The old picture was reportedly handed back only in 1609, a separate event that should not be confused with the 1604 decision.[11]
The commission also explains the picture's mixture of close human action and monumental scale. The family chapel needed an image that could be read at an altar. Caravaggio selected a moment that makes the body, the bearers and the stone large enough to address that audience directly.
From Rome to Paris and the Vatican Pinacoteca
The Vatican records that the painting was transferred to Paris in 1797 under the Treaty of Tolentino. After its return in 1817, it joined the collection of Pius VII's Pinacoteca. A Vatican scholarly bulletin gives its modern inventory as MV 40386. These details establish the movement of this specific canvas rather than a generic history of artworks displaced during the period.[1][3]
The painting is now in the Vatican Museums. Its current collection page is the best first source for display information, which may change with loans or gallery arrangements. The original church and present museum should both appear in its caption and metadata so a visitor understands the work's journey.
The Vatican canvas has also travelled temporarily in the modern period. The Prado displayed it in Madrid from 22 July to 18 September 2011, describing the visit as the painting's first journey to Spain. The Holy See then selected it for its pavilion at Expo 2025 in Osaka, held from 13 April to 13 October 2025, where the pavilion presented the Deposition under the theme “Beauty brings Hope.” Vatican News confirmed the six-month loan from the Vatican Museums at the exhibition's opening. These were loans of the original Vatican painting, not new changes of ownership or evidence that the chapel copy had moved. The dates are historical exhibition dates, not a guide to where the canvas will be hanging on a future visit.[14][16][17]
The altarpiece's removal did not leave the chapel without an image of the subject. Paolucci records a replacement copy by Camuccini, followed in 1818 by Michael Köck's copy, which remained in the church when he wrote. That means a present-day view of the Vittrice chapel and a view of the original Vatican canvas answer different questions: one reveals the intended site and its later history; the other gives access to Caravaggio's painted surface. The chapel copy must not be captioned as the original.[6]
Titles, Copies and Interpretation
Entombment of Christ is a familiar English title, while the Vatican Museums prefer Deposition. Neither conventional label perfectly describes the pictured instant: Christ is being laid on the Anointing Stone before burial.[1]
Different titles do not mean different paintings here. The Vatican canvas is identified by its Vittrice provenance, size and current inventory. At the same time, other artists made pictures of the Deposition and Entombment, and reproductive prints circulated after Caravaggio's work. A visitor should follow the object record rather than rely on a shared title alone.[1][3]
There is a securely catalogued example of that later circulation. The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds Ignazio Bonajuti's 1817 engraving The Entombment of Christ, labelled after Caravaggio. Bonajuti made the print; its date and dimensions belong to his paper object, not to Caravaggio's canvas. A Vatican Museums bulletin surveys such engravings from the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries and notes the difficulty of translating Caravaggio's naturalistic lighting into lines cut for printing. The print is evidence of the composition's reception, not a substitute for checking colour, texture or alterations in the original. See the guide to prints after Caravaggio for the object distinction.[3][9]
The painting also received unusually favourable notice from early writers. In his 1642 account, Giovanni Baglione reported that people called the Chiesa Nuova picture Caravaggio's best work; he presented that as a contemporary reputation rather than a measurable verdict. Giovanni Pietro Bellori later described the figures standing on the stone at the tomb opening and the older bearer supporting Christ beneath the knees. These passages show which aspects of the work caught early attention, but they cannot settle today's questions about the precise function of the slab or every figure's identity.[11]
Rubens made another kind of response. The National Gallery of Canada catalogues an oil painting on oak titled The Entombment, dated about 1612–14, by Peter Paul Rubens; Veress discusses it as a copy after Caravaggio's composition. It is a smaller, later object, not a second version by Caravaggio. Veress finds a more emphatic Passion episode in Rubens's treatment, whereas Caravaggio's scene allows several moments to overlap. That comparison is a scholar's reading of the two paintings, rather than evidence that Rubens knew Caravaggio's intended title.[12][13]
For the wider sequence, use the paintings directory and artist guide. The painting technique guide discusses what examination of specific canvases can establish. The Vatican's diagnostic publication offers further detail beyond its short public description.[4]
Explore the Caravaggio collection
| Name | Date | Type |
|---|---|---|
| Adoration of the Shepherds by Caravaggio: The Messina Nativity | 1608–09; precise order relative to Resurrection of Lazarus remains unresolved | Artwork |
| Amor Victorious by Caravaggio | 1601–02 in the Berlin owner record | Artwork |
| Bacchus by Caravaggio: The Uffizi Painting | about 1598, according to the Uffizi | Artwork |
| Basket of Fruit by Caravaggio | after 1597, probably around the turn of the seventeenth century, according to the Ambrosiana | Artwork |
| Boy Bitten by a Lizard: Caravaggio's London Painting | about 1594–95 in the National Gallery's current catalogue; URL suffix “1596” is inherited | Artwork |
| Boy Bitten by a Lizard: The Florence Version Attributed to Caravaggio | disputed; Longhi's catalogue record preserves historical 1592–93 and other proposed ranges, including c.1597 | Artwork |
| Boy Peeling Fruit by Caravaggio: The Royal Collection Painting | about 1592–93 in the owner's current exhibition record | Artwork |
| Boy Peeling Fruit in Florence: A Derivation from Caravaggio | — | Artwork |
| Boy with a Basket of Fruit by Caravaggio | about 1595 in the Galleria Borghese catalogue | Artwork |
| Caravaggio Paintings in Rome: Churches, Museums and a Practical Route | — | Guide |
| Caravaggio Quotes: What the Documents Actually Record | — | Guide |
| Caravaggio's Lute Player: The Del Monte Painting Once Shown at the Met | about 1596–97 in the Met catalogue | Artwork |
| Caravaggio's Painting Technique: Grounds, Incisions, Revisions and Light | — | Guide |
| Christ at the Column by Caravaggio: The Rouen Flagellation | c.1606 in the owner caption; owner prose gives 1606–07 | Artwork |
| Christ on the Mount of Olives by Caravaggio: The Lost Berlin Painting | — | Artwork |
| Conversion on the Way to Damascus by Caravaggio | about 1601 in the Roma Capitale church record | Artwork |
| Crowning with Thorns by Caravaggio: The Vienna Painting | about 1603 in the 2019 KHM record; “1607” is an inherited URL suffix | Artwork |
| Crowning with Thorns in Prato: Attributed to Caravaggio | about 1602–03 in the collection presentation | Artwork |
| David with the Head of Goliath by Caravaggio: The Borghese Painting | 1606–07 or 1609–10 in the Galleria Borghese catalogue; the later Naples period is favoured by many scholars, while the owner keeps the question open | Artwork |
| David with the Head of Goliath by Caravaggio: The Prado Painting | about 1600 in Prado material; “1599” survives only in the legacy URL | Artwork |
| David with the Head of Goliath by Caravaggio: The Vienna Painting | about 1600–01 in the KHM's 2019 exhibition record; “1607” is a legacy route label | Artwork |
| Did Caravaggio Make Drawings? What Survives and What Paintings Reveal | — | Guide |
| Ecce Homo: Caravaggio's Madrid Rediscovery and the Genoa Painting | — | Artwork |
| John the Baptist in Caravaggio's Paintings: A Guide to the Different Versions | — | Artwork |
| Judith Beheading Holofernes by Caravaggio | beginning of the seventeenth century in the owning museum's account; about 1599–1600 in the Kimbell's 2025 loan label; around 1602 in one specialist catalogue | Artwork |
| Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto: Caravaggio's Ludovisi Ceiling | about 1597; the archive connects the work with Cardinal del Monte's 1597 commission | Artwork |
| Madonna and Child with Saint Anne by Caravaggio: The Palafrenieri Altarpiece | 1605 in the Galleria Borghese object field; completed and delivered by 8 April 1606 | Artwork |
| Madonna of Loreto by Caravaggio: The Pilgrims at Sant'Agostino | broadly c.1604–06; institutional records differ slightly in their starting year | Artwork |
| Madonna of the Rosary by Caravaggio: The Vienna Altarpiece | around 1603 in the Kunsthistorisches Museum's object record | Artwork |
| Martha and Mary Magdalene by Caravaggio: The Detroit Painting | about 1598 in the Detroit Institute of Arts record | Artwork |
| Medusa by Caravaggio: The Uffizi Painted Shield | 1596–98 in the Uffizi's virtual exhibition; specialist research reports the shield delivered to the Medici wardrobe by 7 September 1598 | Artwork |
| Narcissus, Attributed to Caravaggio | dependent on attribution; the Zeri catalogue gives a broad 1610–50 range under Spadarino | Artwork |
| Nativity with Saint Francis and Saint Lawrence: Caravaggio's Missing Painting | somewhere in 1600–09 in the parliamentary report; a specific 1609 execution and place remain debated | Artwork |
| Penitent Mary Magdalene by Caravaggio | 1597 in the owner's catalogue, during Caravaggio's early Roman activity | Artwork |
| Portrait of a Courtesan: Caravaggio's Lost Berlin Portrait | Berlin's data field says c.1590, while its own text compares a Caravaggio work of c.1598; precise date unresolved | Artwork |
| Portrait of Alof de Wignacourt and His Page by Caravaggio | — | Artwork |
| Portrait of Fra Antonio Martelli? Caravaggio's Pitti Knight of Malta | 1608 in the Restituzioni object heading; within Caravaggio's Malta period | Artwork |
| Portrait of Maffeo Barberini: The Seated Corsini Painting | c.1596–97 in the national catalogue | Artwork |
| Portrait of Monsignor Maffeo Barberini: Caravaggio's Newly Acquired Painting | around the late 1590s / age thirty; “1598” in the inherited address is approximate, not an exact document date | Artwork |
| Portrait of Pope Paul V: A Caravaggio Attribution and a Borghese Copy | — | Artwork |
| Prints After Caravaggio: Who Made Them and What They Show | — | Guide |
| Reclining Saint John the Baptist: A Disputed Caravaggio Attribution | often proposed for the artist's final years; the later museum list does not give a precise year. | Artwork |
| Rest on the Flight into Egypt by Caravaggio | about 1597 in the owner's catalogue | Artwork |
| Saint Catherine of Alexandria by Caravaggio: The Thyssen Painting | about 1598–99 in the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza catalogue | Artwork |
| Saint Francis in Meditation by Caravaggio: The Cremona Painting | 1603–06 in the owner account; c.1605–06 in a KHM exhibition caption | Artwork |
| Saint Francis in Prayer: Caravaggio's Carpineto Painting | 1606 in a 2016–17 exhibition work list | Artwork |
| Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy by Caravaggio | c.1595–96 in the owner wall text | Artwork |
| Saint Jerome in Meditation: Caravaggio's Montserrat Painting | 1605 in the owner record; an owner publication reports scholarship placing it about 1605–06 | Artwork |
| Saint Jerome Writing by Caravaggio: The Borghese Painting | c.1606 in the owner catalogue; the “1605” URL suffix is inherited | Artwork |
| Saint Jerome Writing by Caravaggio: The Malta Painting | around 1607–08; foundation dates Malaspina's commission to 1608 | Artwork |
| Saint John in the Wilderness at Toledo Cathedral | exact 1598 not established by the cited cathedral account. | Artwork |
| Saint John the Baptist at Galleria Corsini, Rome | about 1606 in the national record; older proposals ranged from the late 1590s onward. | Artwork |
| Saint John the Baptist at the Capitoline Museums, Rome | 1602. | Artwork |
| Saint John the Baptist at the Galleria Borghese | 1609–10 in the current Borghese record. | Artwork |
| Saint John the Baptist at the Spring: The Bonello Painting in Malta | early seventeenth century in the institutional account; a precise 1608 is not established there. | Artwork |
| Saint Matthew and the Angel: Caravaggio's Lost First Altarpiece | — | Artwork |
| Salome Receives the Head of John the Baptist: Caravaggio's London Painting | about 1609–10, likely late Naples period in the Gallery's account | Artwork |
| Salome with the Head of John the Baptist: Caravaggio's Madrid Painting | — | Artwork |
| Sleeping Cupid by Caravaggio: The Painting Made in Malta | about 1608, Malta period | Artwork |
| Still Life with Fruit on a Stone Ledge: Is It by Caravaggio? | — | Artwork |
| Supper at Emmaus (1606): Caravaggio's Brera Painting | — | Artwork |
| The Annunciation by Caravaggio in Nancy | c.1607–10 in the collection record; 1608–10 in the museum's restoration account | Artwork |
| The Basel Saint John the Baptist: Once Labelled Caravaggio, Now Maíno | about 1608–10 in that schedule, rather than the legacy URL's 1600. | Artwork |
| The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist by Caravaggio | about 1608; installed in the Oratory on 29 August 1608 | Artwork |
| The Burial of Saint Lucy by Caravaggio in Syracuse | 1608, during Caravaggio's Syracuse stay | Artwork |
| The Calling of Saint Matthew by Caravaggio | about 1599–1600 | Artwork |
| The Calling of Saints Peter and Andrew by Caravaggio | about 1602–04 in the Trust's object text | Artwork |
| The Cardsharps by Caravaggio | about 1596–97 in the Kimbell's current object record | Artwork |
| The Conversion of Saint Paul: Caravaggio's Odescalchi Panel | commissioned in 1600; painted around 1600–01 | Artwork |
| The Crucifixion of Saint Andrew by Caravaggio | 1606–07 | Artwork |
| The Crucifixion of Saint Peter by Caravaggio | about 1601 | Artwork |
| The Death of the Virgin by Caravaggio | commissioned 1601; completed late 1605 or early 1606, according to the Louvre | Artwork |
| The Denial of Saint Peter by Caravaggio | 1610 | Artwork |
| The Doria Pamphilj Saint John the Baptist: A Second Youth with a Ram | linked compositionally to the Capitoline 1602 picture; an exact production year for this canvas is not established by the owner pages used here. | Artwork |
| The Entombment of Christ by Caravaggio: The Vatican Deposition | about 1600–04 in Vatican Museums publication material | Artwork |
| The Flagellation of Christ by Caravaggio: The Capodimonte Altarpiece | around 1607, in the first Naples period | Artwork |
| The Fortune Teller by Caravaggio: The Louvre Version and Its Roman Counterpart | — | Artwork |
| The Holy Family with the Infant Saint John the Baptist by Caravaggio | early 1600s in the Met catalogue; no more exact owner date asserted here | Artwork |
| The Incredulity of Saint Thomas by Caravaggio | about 1601 in the SPSG presentation | Artwork |
| The Inspiration of Saint Matthew by Caravaggio | usually 1602; also catalogued 1602–03, for the installed final altarpiece | Artwork |
| The Lute Player by Caravaggio: The Hermitage Painting | about 1596 in the Hermitage collection publication; the Hermitage Friends restoration page gives about 1595–96 | Artwork |
| The Magdalen in Ecstasy: Caravaggio, Copies and a Disputed Original | — | Artwork |
| The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew by Caravaggio | 1599–1600; unveiled with The Calling in 1600 | Artwork |
| The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula by Caravaggio | — | Artwork |
| The Musicians by Caravaggio | 1597 | Artwork |
| The Resurrection of Lazarus by Caravaggio in Messina | 1609; delivered 10 June 1609 in the owner account | Artwork |
| The Sacrifice of Isaac by Bartolomeo Cavarozzi: A Former Caravaggio Attribution | about 1615–17 in the Nicholas Hall catalogue; “1598” is an inherited URL label, not the accepted date | Artwork |
| The Sacrifice of Isaac by Caravaggio: The Uffizi Painting | about 1603 in the Uffizi catalogue | Artwork |
| The Seven Works of Mercy by Caravaggio | 1606–07, according to the Pio Monte | Artwork |
| The Supper at Emmaus by Caravaggio: The London Painting | 1601 | Artwork |
| The Taking of Christ by Caravaggio | 1602 | Artwork |
| The Toulouse *Judith Beheading Holofernes*: A Caravaggio Attribution Debate | c.1606–07 if identified with the recorded Naples work; that identification is debated | Artwork |
| Young Sick Bacchus by Caravaggio | about 1595 in the Galleria Borghese catalogue | Artwork |
| Youth with a Ram: Why Caravaggio's Saint John Looks So Unusual | — | Artwork |
No matching pages found.
Discussion
Share a close observation about The Entombment of Christ by Caravaggio or a source that clarifies its history.
Which detail changes your reading?
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What remains uncertain?
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Caravaggio's Entombment of Christ?
The painting is in the Vatican Museums' Pinacoteca. It was originally made for the Vittrice chapel in Santa Maria in Vallicella, Rome.[1]
Is it called The Deposition or The Entombment?
Both titles are used for the same Vatican canvas. The Vatican uses Deposition while explaining that the image shows Christ being placed on the Anointing Stone before burial.[1]
When was it painted?
Vatican publication material gives an approximate range around 1600–04. A precise single year is not established by the collection page used here.[2]
Who are the people carrying Christ?
The Vatican identifies John and Nicodemus as the bearers. Dónal O'Connor argues that the older man may instead be Joseph of Arimathea; the painted figure has no contemporary identifying inscription. The Virgin, Mary Magdalene and Mary of Cleophas stand around the body in the Vatican's account.[1][8]
Did the painting always remain in Rome?
No. It was taken to Paris in 1797 under the Treaty of Tolentino and returned in 1817, later joining the Vatican Pinacoteca.[1]
References
- Vatican Museums, Caravaggio, Deposition.
- Vatican Museums shop catalogue, Deposizione altarpiece metadata.
- Vatican Museums scholarly bulletin, La fortuna di Caravaggio nelle stampe, object dimensions and inventory.
- Vatican Museums, New Light on the Deposition by Caravaggio, diagnostic study publication.
- Edoardo Aldo Cerrato, Oratorian account of the Vittrice chapel and Caravaggio's painting, L'Osservatore Romano (Oratorian PDF).
- Antonio Paolucci, then director of the Vatican Museums, on the Deposition, L'Osservatore Romano (Vatican Museums PDF).
- United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, John 19:38–42.
- Dónal O'Connor, “Caravaggio between Sacred Scriptures and Images,” Annales Oratorii (2017), pp. 67–71.
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, Ignazio Bonajuti, The Entombment of Christ, engraving after Caravaggio, 1817.
- Vatican News, “Musei Vaticani. Caravaggio. Il pianto e la luce della grazia” (2021).
- Giorgia Duò, “Il rosso e il ‘rumore’: alcune questioni sul Caravaggio maturo tra iconografia e cronaca,” Bollettino Telematico dell'Arte 984 (2025), transcribing the 1604 Oratorian decision and early biographies.
- Ferenc Veress, “Conflicting Interpretations in Caravaggio's Entombment: Iconographic Tradition and Artistic Innovation,” in Iconicity, History, and the Cultural Imageries of Body and Soul (2025), pp. 239–256.
- National Gallery of Canada collection record for Rubens's The Entombment, via Google Arts & Culture.
- Museo Nacional del Prado, The invited work: The Entombment of Christ, Caravaggio (2011 exhibition and object account).
- Georgia Wright, “Caravaggio's Entombment Considered in Situ,” The Art Bulletin 60, no. 1 (1978), pp. 35–42, abstract.
- Holy See Jubilee 2025, “Osaka Expo: Caravaggio's Deposition exhibited in the Holy See Pavilion” (28 October 2024).
- Vatican News, “Al via l'Expo di Osaka, Santa Sede presente con la ‘Deposizione’ di Caravaggio” (12 April 2025).
- Annotated image source: Wikimedia Commons, File:The Entombment of Christ-Caravaggio (c.1602-3).jpg, high-resolution reproduction used for the annotated details.
