The Lamentation of Christ

Over the course of his long career Giulio Clovio returned repeatedly to the Pietà as a subject.The inventory drawn up shortly before his death list seven works on this subject, including two it says were based on inventions by Michelangelo. The influence of the Florentine master is also evident in the present drawing, in which the central group was apparently inspired by the Pietà in Saint Peter's Cathedral. The drawing served as a model for a miniature and for a painting by the Genoese miniaturist and goldsmith Giovanni Battista Castello.