The scene that occurs chronologically between the lamentation over the dead body of Christ at the foot of the cross and the Entombment is found only in Renaissance painting and then somewhat rarely. It is a subsidiary theme to the 'Entombment' and is indeed sometimes so named. It shows the body of Christ carried usually in a winding-sheet, or on a kind of stretcher, by two or three muscular bearers. In Italian painting the theme is more a vehicle for the artist's anatomical skill than a religious study, and less attention is therefore paid to the bearers' identity. We find the same broad disposition of figures with their identifying features that are seen in the Descent from the Cross and the Pieta, that is to say Joseph of Arimathaea at Christ's head, Nicodemus at the feet and St John the apostle standing apart in grief, or perhaps holding one of the Savior's hands. Behind them is seen another motif from the earlier scenes, the Virgin swooning into the arms of the holy women. According to John (19:41), 'Now at the place where he had been crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb...' This proximity may be indicated by the inclusion in the background of both the hill of Calvary with its three empty crosses and the rock-hewn entrance to the tomb.