According to Carracci's two principal biographers, this haunting picture was commissioned by Astorre di Vincenzo Sampieri, canon of the cathedral of Bologna, as a gift to an unidentified collector in Rome. Carracci chose the subject for the possibilities it offered to display his art: the contrast between the interior of the dark cave illuminated by a torch and the dawn-lit landscape visible beyond; the pallid, foreshortened body of Christ carried by figures of various ages and types; and the extraordinary range of expressive attitudes. So successful was Carracci that Sampieri decided to keep the painting for himself and to send to Rome a copy made by the young Guido Reni; at least ten other copies and variants by other artists are known. Despite its small size the work is one of Carracci's most ambitious compositions, positing a fluid and dynamic relationship with the viewer that forecasts Baroque painting.

Our picture remained in the Sampieri collection until 1811 and later belonged to the dukes of Leuchtenberg.