Twelve men and perhaps a child, who is bald and wears a brown robe, kneel, sit, or prostrate themselves in front of an altar piled with three skulls in this almost square painting. All the men appear to have pale, peachy skin and wear tattered robes with hoods in shades of sky or slate blue, peanut brown, terracotta orange, or silvery gray. The man closest to the altar holds up a long cross so it almost touches the skulls. He kneels and bows deeply so his hood completely hides his face. Three more men are near him in this grouping, and another rests on the broken base of a column as he…
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The Adoration of the Skulls

painter Michel-François Dandré-Bardon (French, 1700 - 1783)

c. 1733/1734

Medium
oil on canvas
Classification
Painting
Dimensions
overall: 52.8 x 63.6 cm (20 13/16 x 25 1/16 in.) ; framed: 66.7 x 77.5 x 3.2 cm (26 1/4 x 30 1/2 x 1 1/4 in.)
Culture
French
Museum
National Gallery of Art, CF
Credit line
Gift of Lewis Einstein
Rights
Public domain (NGA Open Access, CC0), as the museum states it.
Who can see it
Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed

View at the National Gallery of Art