The episode that immediately succeeds the crucifixion is mentioned in all the gospels. Joseph of Arimathaea, a rich and respected member of the Sanhedrin - the Jewish legislative council in Jerusalem—and secretly a disciple, obtained permission from Pilate, the Roman governor, to take the body of Christ from the cross. He brought a linen sheet and, together with Nicodemus who brought myrrh and aloes to preserve the body, they took it down and swathed it, with the spices, in strips of the cloth. (According to John this Nicodemus was the man who visited Christ by night. We see the nails being removed from the body, or the moment that it is lowered from the cross. Some authorities make a distinction between this and the deposition proper, that is the act of laying, or depositing, the body on the ground, but it is seldom observed in the naming of pictures. The earliest examples in western art are based on Byzantine originals of the 10th and 11th cents. showing four principal participants: Nicodemus with pincers drawing the nail from the left hand, Joseph taking the weight of the body, the Virgin holding the right hand which is already free, and the apostle John standing sorrowfully a little apart. The last two, who were present at the CRUCIFIXION, are also regularly portrayed with Joseph and Nicodemus in the ensuing series of scenes leading to the entombment. The development of the theme through Renaissance and baroque painting is always in the direction of greater complexity and more numerous figures. In the 14th and 15th cents. one usually sees two ladders, one resting on each end of the cross-bar, and on them two men, Joseph and Nicodemus, supporting the body. Below are the Virgin with her female companions and St John. The skull of Adam may be seen at the foot of the cross. From the 16th cent. and especially in later painting of the Spanish Netherlands the treatment is freer and fuller. The cross is viewed aslant, there are often four ladders, and two unidentified men lean over the cross-bar helping lower the body to Joseph and Nicodemus. Mary Magdalene kneels, perhaps kissing the feet of Christ. A third woman will be Mary the wife of Clopas whom John mentions being present at the crucifixion. The instruments of the Passion lie on the ground: the crown of thorns, nails, and sometimes the inscription and sponge. Another version shows the body being lowered by sliding it down a long winding sheet, stretched from top to bottom. Joseph and Nicodemus can be distinguished by their dress. The former is often richly and elegantly clad, perhaps hatted, in contrast to the latter who is usually of more lowly appearance. In supporting the body Joseph takes the upper part, Nicodemus the lower. In the early Renaissance it is Nicodemus who is seen removing the nails from Christ's feet. St John is, as always, of youthful appearance, often long-haired. He sometimes takes an active part, especially in the later period, helping to receive the body as it is lowered. Prior to the Counter-Reformation the Virgin is sometimes seen swooning into the arms of her companions, but in later works she stands, perhaps clasping her hands in silent anguish. The Magdalen, who was specially venerated in the Counter-Reformation as the personification of Christian penitence, is often the central figure in 17th cent. examples of the theme. She is richly robed and with her long hair may wipe the feet of Christ, as at the crucifixion, in allusion to her original penitent gesture in the house of Simon the Pharisee.

• Joseph of Arimathaea. The disciple 'who was a man of means', who obtained Pilate's permission after the crucifixion to take the body of Christ which he then laid in his own tomb. (Matt. 27:57–60.) At the Deposition he is shown on the ladder lowering the body of Christ, or he stands on the ground receiving it. In the Lamentation and the Entombment he and Nicodemus, and sometimes a youthful figure which is John the Evangelist, bear it on a shroud, one at the head and one at the feet. As a devotional figure Joseph's attributes are the shroud, crown of thorns and nails. Legend tells that he caught the blood from Christ's wound in the Holy Grail, the cup of the Last Supper, and that he came to England and founded the first church at Glastonbury.