The Deposition of Christ in the Tomb

A document dated 14 November 1622 (Valgimigli 1875) suggests that the large altarpiece must once have adorned Fenzoni’s personal chapel in the church of Madonna del Fuoco in Faenza. It was painted in the latter part of the artist’s career and is his last work whose date can be ascertained (Colombi Ferretti 1982). Scholars have long sought to identify Felzoni’s models for this altarpiece. According to Ennio Golfieri (1964), it reflects the style of the Carracci brothers but also the Venetian approach to colour typical of Tintoretto, while Anna Colombi Ferretti (1988) notes a stylistic affinity with Ludovico Carracci and “a certain crudeness” recalling the work of Tiarini and Garbieri. Angelo Mazza (1991) argues that in addition to the severity of Ludovico Carracci’s work reflecting the tenets of the Counter-Reformation, for instance the pictures he painted for Piacenza that are now in the Galleria Nazionale di Parma (The Funeral of the Virgin, The Apostles at the Virgin’s Tomb), Fenzoni also “inherited” the gloom of the last phase in the painting of Bartolomeo Cesi. Three preparatory studies exist for this work, of which there is a smaller version in Palazzo Tozzoni in Imola, two in the Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe degli Uffizi: inv. n.12680F ¹ and inv. n. 12651F ² ; a third is in a private collection in the United States (Scavizzi, in Scavizzi, Schwed 2006).