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The DEPOSITION is properly that moment which succeeds the DESCENT from the Cross; when the dead form of Christ is deposed or laid upon the ground, resting on the lap of his Mother, and lamented by St. John, the Magdalene, and others.  The ideal and devotional form of this subject, styled a Pieta, may be intended to represent one of those festivals of the Passion Week which commemorate the participation of the holy Virgin Mother in the sufferings of her Son.[1] I have already spoken at length of this form of the Mater Dolorosa; the historical version of the same subject is what we have now to consider, but only so far as regards the figure of the Virgin.

[Footnote 1:  “C’est ce que l’on a juge a propos d’appeler La Compassion de la Vierge, autrement Notre Dame de Pitie.”—­Vide Baillet, “Les Fetes Mobiles.”]

In a Deposition thus dramatically treated, there are always from four to six or eight figures.  The principal group consists of the dead Saviour and his Mother.  She generally holds him embraced, or bends over him contemplating his dead face, or lays her cheek to his with an expression of unutterable grief and love:  in the antique conception she is generally fainting; the insensibility, the sinking of the whole frame through grief, which in the Crucifixion is misplaced, both in regard to the religious feeling and the old tradition, is here quite proper.[1] Thus she appears in the genuine Greek and Greco-Italian productions of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, as well as in the two finest examples that could be cited in more modern times.

[Footnote 1:  The reason given is curious:—­“Perche quando Gesu pareva tormentato essendo vivo, il dolore si partiva fra la santissima madre e lui; ma quando poi egli era morto, tutto il dolore rimaneva per la sconsolata madre.”]

1.  In an exquisite composition by Raphael, usually styled a Pieta, but properly a Deposition, there are six figures:  the extended form of Christ; the Virgin swooning in the arms of Mary Salome and Mary Cleophas; Mary Magdalene sustains the feet of Christ, while her sister Martha raises the veil of the Virgin, as if to give her air; St. John stands by with clasped hands; and Joseph of Arimathea looks on the sorrowing group with mingled grief and pity.[1]

[Footnote 1:  This wonderful drawing (there is no finished picture) was in the collection of Count Fries, and then belonged to Sir T. Lawrence.  There is a good engraving by Agricola.]

2.  Another, an admirable and celebrated composition by Annibale Caracci, known as the Four Marys, omits Martha and St. John.  The attention of Mary Magdalene is fixed on the dead Saviour; the other two Marys are occupied by the fainting Mother. (Castle Howard.) On comparing this with Raphael’s conception, we find more of common nature, quite as much pathos, but in the forms less of that pure poetic grace, which softens at once, and heightens the tragic effect.