Guess the Artwork

La Pietà (1498–1499) carrara marble sculpture by Michelangelo Buonarroti, housed in St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City.

A masterpiece of Renaissance art, it was commissioned for the French cardinal Jean de Bilhères, who was a representative in Rome, as his funeral monument, but was moved to its current location, the first chapel on the right as one enters the basilica, in the 18th century.

Organised following a pyramidal structure, the statue depicts the body of Jesus on the lap of his mother Mary after the Crucifixion, with the vertex coinciding with Mary's head.

The statue widens progressively down the drapery of Mary's dress, to the base, the rock of Golgotha.

Michelangelo's interpretation of the Pietà differs from those previously created by other artists, firstly because he sculpted a young and beautiful Mary rather than an older woman and also because he balanced the Renaissance ideals of classical beauty with naturalism.  Moreover, his version of The Pietà doesn't show the drama and pathos of death, on the contrary, through the calm and serene facial expressions of Christ and the Virgin Mary, it  represents the communion between man and God by the sanctification through Christ.

It is the only piece Michelangelo ever signed.