This may have been a sketch for a work in marble, but it would have been difficult to translate the composition into such a heavy material, given the way Christ's body hangs free, with no support from below. The clay is very loosely worked, and the faces lack much detail. Rather, it is the sense of the struggle to move the body with care, the expressive postures of the other figures, and the weighty drapery that create a sense of sorrow and grief.

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