The Deposition of Christ in the sepulchre is a tempera painting with oil paintings on wood (161.7×149.9 cm) attributed to Michelangelo Buonarroti, dated around 1500-1501 and preserved in the National Gallery in London. Three figures are carrying Christ’s dead body towards the tomb with some effort (the white spot at the top right, where the colour would still be missing), surrounded by two women who do not seem to be interested in the scene, perhaps representing pious women; at the bottom right, where the table is not painted, there must have been the Virgin Mary. The body of Christ, anatomically well shaped, is held up behind by Joseph of Arimathea, while on the left and right a man (John the Evangelist?) and a woman (perhaps Mary Magdalene) are visibly tilted outwards for the effort of holding a cloth on which the dead body is as if seated. As in other works of the artist, the figures have an androgynous feel and it is difficult to determine, for some of them, whether they are men or women[1]. The background is composed of a rugged landscape with some bare rocks and mountains fading into the distance as a result of the mist.
