The Lamentation of Christ (recto)

In the present drawing (known also as the Warwick Pietà after its former owner), Michelangelo rendered the event of Lamentation with exceptionally drastic expressiveness. The depiction of Christ lying in the Madonna's lap, his head fallen back and his right arm hanging down lifelessly, is in keeping with a pictorial type common in Northern Pietà sculptures of the fourteenth and fifteenth century. Because of their dissemination by traveling German sculptors, examples of these Pier compositions were widely known in Italy as early as the fifteenth century.

The present drawing is closely related to works such as the German oak Pietà in Rheinberg. Unlike the creators of such Pietà sculptures, Michelangelo expanded the scene to a multi-figural lamentation group, similar to Donatallo's bronze relief, now in London, which was certainly also inspired by Northern examples.

It can be assumed that this composition was a preliminary drawing for a painting commissioned from Michelangelo's friend, Sebastiano del Piombo.

The nude figure on the verso of the sheet is probably not in Michelangelo's own hand.