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Preview image of work. etching and engraving on paper,  Pietà 19371
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2009.14

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Pietà

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Artists

Jacques Bellange (ca. 1575 - 1616, Nancy, France); Rudolph (Rudy) Burckhardt (Basel, Switzerland, 1914 - 8/1/1999, Searsmont, Maine)

Title

Pietà

Creation Date

1615

Century

early 17th century

Dimensions

12 1/8 in. x 7 3/4 in. (30.8 cm x 19.69 cm)

Object Type

print

Creation Place

Europe, France

Medium and Support

etching and engraving on paper

Credit Line

Museum Purchase, Lloyd O. and Marjorie Strong Coulter Fund

Copyright

Public Domain

Accession Number

2009.14

The French etcher Jacques Bellange belongs to the very last stages of Mannerism. His emotionally charged Pietà owes its form to Michelangelo’s presentation drawing for Vittoria Colonna, which was copied and widely disseminated through prints. Bellange conveys feelings of loss and grief through beautiful and highly artificial bodily forms. Christ’s smooth, muscular body sways in a gentle S-curve as he is supported between his mother’s strong knees. Mary’s legs and arms are swathed in ballooning drapery. As if overcome by faintness, the Virgin Mary tilts her head upward toward heaven, exposing her long elegantly curving throat. The delicately tapering fingers of her right hand spread in a graceful gesture favored by Mannerists—the index finger held apart from the others. In contrast, the fingers of her limp left hand swell at the knuckles into sausage-like appendages.