Riminese School
The Descent from the Cross
14th century
Accademia Gallery, Venice
Two disciples work at removing Jesus' body from the cross, one below using tongs to remove the nails from his feet and the other above passing the body to the Virgin Mary, who presses her face to her son's. Mary Magdalene and John the Evangelist kiss his hands.
Traditional devices identify the figures on the left: Mary in blue, Mary Magdalene with blond hair, and beardless John with his "page boy" haircut.
The tongs used to pull out the nails from Jesus' feet are a common element in a number of iconographic types: the Death of Jesus, the Mass of St. Gregory, the Deësis, the Man of Sorrows, and outdoor crosses.
The Gallery's label identifies the work as by the Riminese School, which dates from the late 13th into the 14th century. The Louvre has a very similar painting by Pietro da Rimini, of that school, from the second quarter of the 14th century. This piece is a good deal less accomplished than Pietro's so I assume that it is a later copy. In any case, the works show that the Descent from the Cross was an iconographic type from at least the first half of the 14th century.
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Photographed at the Accademia Gallery by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.