Pietà

Giovanni della Robbia

National Gallery of Art

A woman braces the body of a dead young man across her lap in this freestanding, painted, terracotta sculpture. The woman half stands and half crouches with her body facing us in this photograph. Her face is mottled with red and peach and is lined, and her eyes look down or are closed. Her snow-white head covering also lines her face, covers her neck, and rests in folds on her chest. Her lapis-blue cloak drapes over her head and falls to her feet over her long-sleeved, plum-purple dress. The man’s skin is glazed with mottled shades of tan and peach, and he wears only a white loincloth across his hips. The woman supports his head with her right hand, to our left, so her fingers twine with his long curls. The man has a curly beard. His lips are parted, and his eyes are almost closed. His right arm, closer to us, lies across his belly and there is a hole piercing the back of that hand. There is also a gash across his right ribs and holes in the tops of his feet. The woman braces his hip with her other hand, and his legs fall limply to the side, knees bent. The woman stands on a step on a white base, and one purple shoe peeks out under the pooling folds of her blue cloak. Some of the painted, glazed areas are chipped on the white base.