In this composition the characters are the typical ones we find in paintings about the Deposition. We can easily recognize Mary, Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, John, Mary Magdalen and two pious women. They are gathered around Christ’s dead body and they express a calm pain. The tones are almost opaque, for the use of canvas seems to emphasize the shadow of mourning in the scene. Gestures are moderate; the scene is almost suspended in time and space.

The Sepulcher in which the body of Christ is placed is not a cavern but a marble sarcophagus without any decoration. The landscape is essential and, since there is no direct source of light, the illumination is diffused. The contrast between the eight characters in close-up, and the empty landscape, which dissolves into infinity, just marked by a few trees and some hills, seems to underline the dramatic and solemn event of the death of God’s Child.

The body of Christ is now stiff and it is placed on the sheet that later will be wrapped around Him. We do not see the stone that will close the tomb and nothing suggests the possibility of Resurrection.