Ten near life-size figures crowd a shallow gilded niche as Christ's body is lowered from the cross, and the Virgin swoons in a pose that echoes her son's. Rogier van der Weyden painted it for the crossbowmen's guild of Leuven, making it look like a painted, carved altarpiece. It became the most copied Netherlandish image of the subject.
Look closer
Tiny crossbows, the guild's emblem, hang in the gilded tracery of the upper corners. Then look for the glassy tears on the mourners' faces.
Looks like this
Compared by a vision model
