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The Lamentation

ca. 1560
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 619
Like El Greco, Morales explored visionary spirituality, but tended toward a morbid sensibility suited to the most dramatic Spanish devotional imagery. As life drains from his body, Christ falls from his mother’s embrace and the viewer witnesses the intimate moment of his death. Unlike El Greco’s rough paint handling, Morales perfected a soft, smooth surface that contrasts with his figures’ powerful emotions. An obsessive interest in details—eyelashes, teardrops, rivulets of blood—inspired by Netherlandish painting lends this otherworldly vision a sense of a realism.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: The Lamentation
  • Artist: Luis de Morales (Spanish, Plasencia (?) 1510/11–1586 Alcántara)
  • Date: ca. 1560
  • Medium: Oil on walnut
  • Dimensions: 35 × 24 5/8 in. (89 × 62.5 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: Purchase, Alejandro Santo Domingo and Annette de la Renta Gifts; Bequests of George D. Pratt and of Annette B. McFadden, and Gifts of Estate of George Quackenbush, in his memory, of Dr. and Mrs. Max A. Goldzieher, of Francis Neilson, of Dr. Foo Chu and Dr. Marguerite Hainje-Chu, of Mr. and Mrs. Harold H. Burns, and of Mr. and Mrs. Joshua Logan, and other gifts and bequests, by exchange; Victor Wilbour Fund; and Hester Diamond Gift, 2015

  • Object Number: 2015.398
  • Curatorial Department: European Paintings

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