Rondanini Pieta by Michelangelo ... his finest work?

Rondanini Pieta by Michelangelo

Named for the Roman palace where it long stood, the Rondanini Pietà is the sculpture on which Michelangelo was working only six days prior to his death on February 18, 1564.

When Michelangelo began this final pietà in 1556, he chose to work from a piece he had begun but abandoned nearly ten years earlier. In the early stages of the Rondanini Pietà, Mary was holding up the slender Christ with her outstretched arms as if offering his spirit, but with time and through nearly three different stages, Christ sank down, now emerging from Mary's breast and exaggerated in his slender form. Finally, Michelangelo drew the heads of the two figures closer and closer together, dissolving the barrier between mother and son.

                        

MICHELANGELO

The other Michelangelo pietas:

                                                                                The Deposition (also called the Florence Pietà, the Pietà del Duomo or The Lamentation over the Dead Christ)

                                                                                    The Pietà (1498–1499) is a masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture by Michelangelo Buonarroti, housed in St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City