Descent from the Cross

Federico Barocci's Descent from the Cross in the Cathedral at Perugia (1569), one of the artist's greatest masterpieces, served as a main visual reference to his pupil Viviani for this large, newly attributed drawing. Viviani retained the main characters from Barocci's prototype, as well as two dramatic narratives: everyone rotates around Christ's sinuous body, lowered from the Cross, while the Virgin swoons in the foreground. Closely comparable to other drawings by the artist, including The Virgin adored by Saint Anthony (Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, inv. NH 465/1863), this sheet demonstrates his liquid technique and mature interpretation of Barocci's vocabulary, mixed with references to the Zuccari and the milieu of Counter Reformation Rome, where he moved in 1585.