Imitator of Andrea Mantegna, 'The Maries at the Sepulchre', perhaps 1460-1550

The Gospel of Mark records that three of Christ’s followers – Mary, Mary Magdalene and Salome – visited his tomb to anoint his body. When they arrived they found that the stone that enclosed the tomb had been rolled away, and that the tomb was empty. Instead they found ‘a young man... clothed in a long white garment’ who told them that Christ had risen from the dead (Mark 16: 1–8). In the Gospel of Matthew, the figure is described as the angel of the Lord; the painter of this panel has shown him as an angel with long blue wings.

The painter of this panel shows the entrance to a cave, which resembles more closely the type of sepulchre described in the Bible, as well as a white marble sarcophagus; with its classical-style carving, this resembles tomb sculpture that Renaissance viewers were familiar with. Mary Magdalene, recognisable by her long flowing red hair, is taken aback by the sight of the empty tomb which the angel reveals to her: only the burial shroud remains. One of the women below has been watching and is now making her way towards the tomb. She wraps her blue robe around her body in shock and, in a flourish that adds drama to the moment, her draperies flick up behind her in the breeze.

The scene is set in a rugged landscape of stony ground and craggy rocks, a ubiquitous feature of Mantegna’s paintings. Another natural feature often found in religious works by Mantegna is the dead tree – here the roots of a gnarled tree stump almost reach into the little pond in the foreground and equally dead branches emerge from the rocky outcrop above the cave. A symbol of death, these roots and branches are contrasted with the fresh young tree that frames the figure of Mary Magdalene. Just as in Noli me Tangere, the living tree symbolises the eternal life that Christ offers through his death and resurrection. It’s worth noting that the stump near the pond has a little fresh branch sprouting from it, perhaps a symbol of hope. Mantegna occasionally also included animals in his works – we find rabbits, for example, in The Agony in the Garden. Here we see a tortoise which has just emerged from the pond, and swimming in it are two ducks.

The sharp folds of the robes of the women and angel, and the characteristic features above, suggest the artist was imitating Mantegna’s style. The soft and blurry edges of the landscape and the hills beyond are less crisp than we would expect from Mantegna and point to a different artist painting at a slightly later date. This painting is from the same series as The Resurrection and Noli me Tangere.