This painting of the Virgin Mary cradling the dead Christ in her lap originally adorned the altar of the Holy Cross chapel in the former church of the Franciscan friary in Ljubljana that once stood on the site of today’s Vodnik Square. The altar was commissioned from the leading Ljubljana stonemason Mihael Kuša in 1694 by the rich Ljubljana merchant Jakob Schell von Schellenburg, who turned to Venetian artists for the decoration. The Venetian sculptor Paolo Callalo (1655–1725) was engaged to make the sculptures and the altar was also adorned with a painting in a slightly unusual longitudinal format that was probably commissioned at an earlier date from the Venetian painter Antonio Bellucci.

It is mentioned by Johann Gregor Thalnitscher (Dolničar) in around 1715 in his list of notable paintings adorning Ljubljana’s churches. Its importance and the interest it aroused are further demonstrated by the almost contemporaneous copy attributed to Giulio Quaglio and owned by the Archdiocese of Ljubljana.

In stylistic terms, the Pietàis comparable to Bellucci’s Descent from the Cross in the parish church of Great Witley in the English county of Worcestershire, his Coronation of Mary from the Ursuline convent in Linz (today in a private collection) and his Immaculata from the Mausoleum of Emperor Ferdinand II in Graz.