A view of the Pauline Chapel during the Vigil of the Forty Hours, in the Vatican Palace, Rome

This watercolour by Louis-Jean Desprez over etched outlines by Francesco Piranesi dates from 1788. Fine touches of gold and silver highlight the Pauline Chapel at the Vatican on the evening of Maundy Thursday, or the Veglia delle Quarant'ore, which commemorates the forty hours between the death of Christ and his Resurrection. The Macchina delle Quarantore, a large gilded wooden candelabra structure that would have supported two-hundred and thirteen candles, is the prime visual focus of the ceremony. In 1628, Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) designed an apparato that would form the first pictorial stage set associated with the Forty Hours ceremony in Rome, for the Vatican Pauline Chapel (see M. Weil, 'The Devotion of the Forty Hours and Roman Baroque Illusions', in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XXXVII, 1974, pp. 227-228). In the present work, lines of lit candles on silver candlesticks, or held by winged angels, emphasize the suggestive chiaroscuro effect. Other impressions of these prints enhanced with watercolour can be found in the Royal Library in Stockholm and the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm (inv. NMG 280/1883).