# The Lamentation [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [BENSON, Ambrosius]() - Date: 1501-1550 - Technique: Oil on canvas, transferred from wood, 91 x 56 cm ## Commentary In this Lamentation, Christ lies on the ground on a shroud, surrounded by only three figures: the Virgin, St John, and Mary Magdalen. The Lamentation became a popular theme in Northern art in the fourteenth century. It gave prominence to the Virgin, who often holds the body of her son. By the sixteenth century there were many different compositions relating to the Christ figure, the number of accompanying figures, and the setting. In this painting the composition is minimal and sober, it verges on the classical and almost sculptural. The prototype for the painting could be Gerard David's versions of the Lamentation <a onclick="return OpenOther\('/html/d/david/1/lamentay.html'\)" href="/html/d/david/1/lamentay.html">in the Philadelphia Museum of Art</a> or <a onclick="return OpenOther\('/html/d/david/2/adorati0.html'\)" href="/html/d/david/2/adorati0.html">in the National Gallery, London.</a> Several other versions of the Lamentation by Benson and contemporaries are related to the present painting. It is clear that these paintings can be traced back to several examples by Gerard David, showing that Benson and his generation continued with the themes of their predecessors, altering very little in the composition and style of the familiar Bruges paintings of the fifteenth century. ## Related artworks - [Concert]() - [Lady Anne Stafford]() - [Lamentation]() - [Mary Magdalene]() - [Mary Magdalene]() - [Pietà at the Foot of the Cross]() - [Portrait of a Man Holding a Rose]() - [Rest on the Flight into Egypt]() - [Virgin and Child]() - [Virgin and Child with Saint Anne]() - [Virgin and Child with Sts Catherine and Barbara]() - [Virgin with the Pear]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()