TINTORETTO
(b. 1518, Venezia, d. 1594, Venezia)

Entombment

1592-94
Oil on canvas, 288 x 166 cm
San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice

The church of San Giorgio Maggiore was built on the San Giorgio Island between 1566 and 1600 using the design of Palladio. After 1590 the workshop of Tintoretto was commissioned to paint big canvases for decorating it. Due the large number of commissions, Tintoretto in his late years increasingly relied on his coworkers. However, three surviving paintings placed in a chapel consecrated in 1592 - The Jews in the Desert, The Last Supper and Entombment - were certainly painted by Tintoretto himself.

It is remarkable on this picture that the dead Christ and the fainted Mary is depicted in similar position in two different groups of figures. The representation of the figures is rather simplified, and therefore, the composition shows some similarity to late medieval, Venetian-Byzantine type passion scenes.