Lamentation

This is one of the few surviving paintings by Jacques Bellange, founder of the Lotharingian school of painting, who worked at the court of dukes Charles III and Henry II of Lorraine. The painting is a rare example of French Mannerism in religious art. The fanciful interlacing of zigzag lines and the sharp contrasts of light and shade intensify the sense of mental anguish evident even in the face of the donor, on the right (perhaps a portrait of Bellange’s ducal patron).