Man of Sorrow

Copy of a niello print from the Durazzo Collection.

On the tomb : MORS MEA.VITATVA .; around the perimeter : + CORPORIS : AFFLICTV.VERBIS ET VLNERE QVINO . FRANCISCO FAVEAS . SVRGAT ET IPSA DOMVS .

Dutuit noted that unknown to Bartsch , Du chesne , and Zanetti , the facsimile they cited was not copied from a paper impression but , rather , from an original silver plaque that belonged to Durazzo and was sold in 1872 ( no . 2820 ) . The subject has been described as the half - length Christ within the tomb and surrounded by instruments of the Passion ; the image was enclosed within a double border , the inner one adorned with a ( symbolical ? ) vine motif , the outer one with the words quoted above . The medallion apparently had as a pendant another niello plaque from the Durazzo collection ( no . 2819 ) , depicting Christ carrying the cross. This was also surrounded by a double border ( Dutuit , p . 16 , no . 72 ) . Repository unknown . 

The nielli of the Durazzo collection were reproduced in engravings by the owner himself, between the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, in Venice - as also specified by Malaspina in his catalog of 1824 - constituting a series that was circulated and collected by amateurs. Bartsch describes these copies in his volume published in 1811, a date that therefore constitutes the terminus ante quem for the execution.