This painting shows Christ scarred by his suffering on the cross. His lifeless body rises from the sarcophagus, which is draped in a brownish-purple cloth.

The bleeding wounds are clearly highlighted against the greenish incarnation. The figure of Christ is set on a finely worked gold surface, the ground and frame of which are from the same piece of wood. The frame, decorated with a vine design, medallions and half-jewels is reminiscent of the most precious goldsmith’s work.

The subject, the presentation and the painting’s small format indicate this to be a devotional picture. It is intended to awaken compassion in the viewer. In a time characterised by catastrophic plague epidemics, it is a document of private piety offering refuge to the suffering people. In Siena, where this picture was painted and this type was very popular, three-fifths of the population died from the “black death” between 1348 and 1350.

In front of an expansive, hilly landscape stands a baldachin structure. Open on three sides, it dominates the entire picture surface and is richly decorated with delicate Renaissance ornamentation. Below the canopy sits Jesus, a hostage with the crown of thorns on his head. The architecture becomes a symbol of dignity for the son of God and is at the same time a reference to temples and triumphal gates.

This type of picture is known as Christ in Repose and derives from Giotto’s mocking scene in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua. It probably first appeared as an independent subject in a fresco by the 14th century painter Ridolfo Guariento in Padua’s Church of the Eremitani, which has now been lost.

The composition of the image follows the rules of central perspective. All the lines of perspective converge in a single point: the hands of Christ. They represent the formal and narrative focus of the work, embodying suffering borne in deepest humility.

A youthful John the Baptist sits on the rocky outcrop of a grotto-like cliff formation that forms the dark background for his brightly lit figure. Most of his body is naked with parts draped in a leopard skin. His raised right hand points to a wooden cross that radiates a supernatural light. Next to it is a spring. At the right edge of the picture is a sunny landscape with waterfalls.

A spring can serve as a symbol for baptism and the purity of belief. The rays emanating from the cross are, ‘the light of truth’, ‘the light that illuminates darkness’, as John states (John 1: 5–9). The tree cut back to a stump can be read as a reference to a quotation from Luke (3:9): ‘every tree that bears no fruit should be cut down and thrown into the fire.’ New growth is already emerging at the point where the cross is affixed.

The demonstrative nakedness of the athletic body and the heroic pose of the youthful St. John mark the rebirth of the Renaissance, also in religious painting. There are few other pictures in which the tension between a Christian subject and the rediscovered models of antiquity is so present, portraying the saint as a secular hero.

The painting is largely identical with Raphael’s work of the same name in the Uffizi in Florence. The 1767 catalogue of the Princely Collections lists the painting as the work of Giulio Romano and its attribution has been in discussion ever since.

The Renaissance considered the tondo a picture format of the highest perfection. Michelangelo’s Madonna Doni (1503/04) and Raphael’s Madonna della Sedia (c. 1514) had established benchmarks for the not unproblematic creation of a composition in the round shape.

In this tondo Perino tackles the classical models. The figure of the sitting Madonna forms the spine of the composition, embraced by the infant Jesus turning on his own axis. A work such as Raphael’s Madonna Aldobrandini (painted around 1515) may have served as Perino’s inspiration for this compositional layout.

The novelty of the picture lies in the strong, metallic coolness of the colouring. With its abrupt change from bright to dark areas the colours produce an almost three-dimensional effect and dramatise the portrayal. Raphael was developing this coloured chiaroscuro in his late works at the same time as Perino became a student in the master’s workshop.

A painting in the collection of the Duke of Northbrook uses the same structure but without the figure of Joseph and using a rectangular format. The Northbrook version appears to be Perino’s first formulation of this visual idea which he subsequently revisited in a more mature version, shaping the image in the tondo format.