Dead Christ
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.Here, Christ is laid out for the washing and preparation of his body for burial. The image of his tortured death would have provoked strong emotions from devout seventeenth-century worshippers, who were cast in the role of biblical mourners before the figure. Fernández employed glass eyes and fingernails made of bull’s horn to enhance the figure’s realism. His mouth is open to show bone teeth, and thick red paint was used for the coagulating blood. The work’s poignant naturalism makes it perhaps the finest version of a subject treated often by the artist for Spanish churches. Such figures were frequently placed in glass cases below an altar, but they could also be animated by being carried in procession.
Artwork Details
- Title: Dead Christ
- Artist: Gregorio Fernández (Spanish, 1576–1635)
- Date: 1625–1630
- Culture: Spanish
- Medium: Polychromed wood, horn, glass, bone, and cork
- Dimensions: 18 1/8 × 29 1/8 × 75 3/16 in. (46 × 74 × 191 cm)
- Classification: Sculpture
- Credit Line: Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art