Veiled Christ

The Veiled Christ is Giuseppe Sanmartino’s 1753 marble sculpture of the dead Christ beneath a translucent-looking shroud, made for Naples’s Sansevero Chapel.

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Giuseppe Sanmartino: Giuseppe Sanmartino was an Italian sculptor active in Naples during the eighteenth century. He carved the sculpture in 1753 for Raimondo di Sangro.
Marble carving: Marble carving is the removal of stone to create a sculpted form. Sanmartino shaped folds and anatomy by carving away the block rather than adding fabric.
Antonio Corradini: Antonio Corradini was an Italian sculptor known for figures covered by finely carved stone veils. He began a veiled Christ for the chapel before his death, but Sanmartino executed the final work.
Modesty (Corradini sculpture): Modesty is Antonio Corradini’s marble sculpture of a veiled woman, made for the Sansevero Chapel. Its veiled female figure offers a close comparison for the chapel’s different marble illusion.
Marble sculpture: Marble sculpture is the practice of shaping marble into three-dimensional works of art. Sanmartino made the apparently delicate veil from the same marble as Christ’s body.
Chisel: A chisel is a cutting tool with a sharpened edge, struck or pressed to shape hard materials. Tools such as chisels let sculptors define the veil’s ridges and delicate folds.
Raimondo di Sangro: Raimondo di Sangro was an eighteenth-century Italian nobleman, inventor, and patron of the arts. His commission and chapel renovation established the setting and purpose of the sculpture.
Veiled Truth: Veiled Truth is a marble sculpture by Antonio Corradini depicting a woman beneath a transparent-looking veil. Corradini’s treatment of a stone veil anticipates the visual problem Sanmartino solved.
Pietà: A Pietà is a Christian image of the Virgin Mary mourning the dead Christ, often holding his body. The Veiled Christ belongs to the broader tradition of images meditating on Christ’s dead body.
Optical illusion: An optical illusion is a visual perception that differs from the physical properties of what is seen. Light and shadow make solid marble appear to behave like translucent cloth.