Bring your favorites together in your free personal gallery.
Your galleryThe Entombment
Look first
- What catches your attention?
- Where does your eye go next?
- What would you ask about this work?
Show me
Count the five figures and how much of each one you can see, from Christ’s whole body to the weeping woman in blue, shown only by her head and hands.
Guercino’s account books survive, and they show that he charged by the figure. The Art Institute of Chicago reports that the client for this Entombment of 1656 would pay for only one full-length figure, one bust and three half-lengths, so the mourners press close around Christ’s body as it is lowered into the tomb, with three crosses on the hill behind.
Oil on canvas · 146.7 × 221.2 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · Baroque
Look again
What do you notice now?
Try a quick sketch
Take a minute to sketch on any paper. No upload needed.
What did you draw first? What did you leave out?
Details and source
- Museum title
- The Entombment
- Artist
- Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri; Italian, 1591-1666)
- Date
- 1656
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 146.7 × 221.2 cm (57 3/4 × 87 1/16 in.); Framed: 172.7 × 247 × 8.9 cm (68 × 97 1/4 × 3 1/2 in.)
- Credit line
- Wilson L. Mead Fund
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.