Besides Joseph of Arimathea, we have sometimes Nicodemus; as in the very fine Deposition by Perugino, and in one, not loss fine, by Albert Durer.  In a Deposition by Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead, stands near his sister Martha.

In a picture by Vandyke, the Mother closes the eyes of the dead Redeemer:  in a picture by Rubens, she removes a thorn from his wounded brow:—­both natural and dramatic incidents very characteristic of these dramatic painters.

There are some fine examples of this subject in the old German school.  In spite of ungraceful forms, quaint modern costumes, and worse absurdities, we often find motifs, unknown in the Italian school, most profoundly felt, though not always happily expressed, I remember several instances in which the Madonna does not sustain her Son; but kneeling on one side, and, with clasped hands, she gazes on him with a look, partly of devotion, partly of resignation; both the devotion and the resignation predominating over the maternal grief.  I have been asked, “why no painter has ever yet represented the Great Mother as raising her hands in thankfulness that her Son had drank the cup—­had finished the work appointed for him on earth?” This would have been worthy of the religions significance of the moment; and I recommend the theme to the consideration of artists.[1]

[Footnote 1:  In the most modern Deposition I have seen (one of infinite beauty, and new in arrangement, by Paul Delaroche), the Virgin, kneeling at some distance, and a little above, contemplates her dead Son.  The expression and attitude are those of intense anguish, and only anguish.  It is the bereaved Mother; it is a craving desolation, which is in the highest degree human and tragic; but it is not the truly religious conception.]

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The entombment follows, and when treated as a strictly historical scene, the Virgin Mother is always introduced, though here as a less conspicuous figure, and one less important to the action.  Either she swoons, which is the ancient Greek conception; or she follows, with streaming eyes and clasped hands, the pious disciples who bear the dead form of her Son, as in Raphael’s wonderful picture in the Borghese Palace, and Titian’s, hardly less beautiful, in the Louvre, where the compassionate Magdalene sustains her veiled and weeping figure;—­or she stands by, looking on disconsolate, while the beloved Son is laid in the tomb.

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All these fine and important themes belong properly to a series of the History of Christ.  In a series of the Life of the Virgin, the incidents of the Passion of our Lord are generally omitted; whereas, in the cycle of subjects styled the ROSARY, the Bearing of the Cross, the Crucifixion, and the Deposition, are included in the fourth and fifth of the “Sorrowful Mysteries.”  I shall have much more to say