Artwork
Holy Women at Christ' s Tomb
Holy Women at Christ' s Tomb is an oil painting by the Mannerist artist Annibale Carracci. It dates from 1596 and is held in the collection of the Hermitage Museum.
About this work
Overview
Annibale Carracci’s oil painting, created in 1598, depicts a group of women gathered at the tomb of Christ. Executed on canvas, the work measures roughly a modest size and is now part of the Hermitage Museum’s collection in Saint Petersburg, where it entered the inventory in 1836.
Subject & Meaning
The scene shows four women, traditionally identified as the Myrrh‑bearers, standing beside an open tomb. One gestures toward the interior, another clutches a cloth, while a youthful, winged figure with a halo leans on a stone, observing the discovery. The composition captures the moment of realizing the empty tomb, juxtaposing human urgency with a calm, angelic presence.
Technique & Style
Carracci employs a balanced Baroque composition, drawing on classical sculpture for the figures’ poses and on Raphael’s Vatican tapestry designs for the drapery and spatial arrangement. The palette relies on deep blues, reds and whites, with soft chiaroscuro that models the faces and folds of the garments, reflecting the artist’s synthesis of Roman contemporaries and his earlier Bolognese training.
History & Provenance
An 1678 account by Carlo Cesare Malvasia records the painting’s presence in a Neapolitan noble’s collection before its later transfer.
The work was commissioned by Lelio Pasqualini, a Bolognese canon of Santa Maria Maggiore residing in Rome, whose antiquarian interests likely influenced the unusual grouping of figures. After remaining in private hands, it was acquired by the Hermitage Museum in 1836. An 1678 account by Carlo Cesare Malvasia records the painting’s presence in a Neapolitan noble’s collection before its later transfer.
Context
The painting belongs to a period when Carracci was integrating influences from Roman artists and classical antiquity, a synthesis also evident in his fresco cycle The Loves of the Gods. The red‑and‑gold dress of the central woman echoes a similar figure in Carracci’s earlier Allegory of Truth and Time, linking this work to his broader visual vocabulary.
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Artist & collection
Artist
Annibale Carracci ( kə-RAH-chee, UK also kə-RATCH-ee, Italian: ; November 3, 1560 – July 15, 1609) was an Italian painter and instructor, active in Bologna and later in Rome.
