Title: The Pietà

Artist: Fernando Gallego

Title: The Pietà Date: About 1490–1500 Artist: Circle of Fernando Gallego (Spanish, about 1440/45–about 1507) Medium: Oil on panel Description: The realism and meticulous rendering of detail in the figures and landscape of this work are characteristic of late fifteenth-century Netherlandish painting, which was often emulated by Spanish artists. However, the unknown Spanish painter who created this panel deliberately exaggerated Christ’s broken body and the Virgin’s overscale figure and grief-stricken features in order to intensify the physical and emotional anguish central to the theme.