Entombment: translation
The entombment refers to the biblical account of Christ's burial. Pontius Pilate granted permission to Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus to retrieve the body from the cross. In keeping with Jewish funerary customs, Mary Magdalen anointed Christ's body, and it was then wrapped in a white shroud and placed in the sepulcher. Both Raphael (1507; Rome, Galleria Borghese) and Titian (c. 1523-1525; Paris, Louvre) showed the Entombment with men carrying the dead body in a white cloth for burial. Caravaggio's version of 1603-1604 for the Vittrici Chapel in the Chiesa Nuova (Rome, Pinacoteca Vaticana) is an iconic image of figures cascading diagonally to lower the Savior into the tomb. Rembrandt's (1639; Munich, Alte Pinakothek) instead presents the moment when Christ is laid on his bier, the scene dramatically lit by candlelight.