Christ is shown at the centre, being lowered from the Cross. The two thieves have already been taken down. To the right, two men stagger under the weight of one of them, while the penitent thief is caught on the ladder that leans against his cross. The swooning figure of the Virgin is attended by two of the Maries and St John. The 'instruments of the Passion' (a hammer, pincers and the Crown of Thorns) lie on the ground.

The scene is identical to that described by the famous painter and biographer Giorgio Vasari, who stated that Jacopo Sansovino made a wax model of the Descent from the Cross while he was in Rome (in 1506-1511) for use by the painter Perugino. This is probably accurate, as copies of a lost painting by Perugino, clearly based on the present model, still survive. An early work by the painter Andrea del Sarto in the Pinacoteca del Seminario, Venice, also appears to have been derived from this model.

Sansovino was born and trained in Florence, but worked in Rome before settling in Venice in 1527. There he became the leading sculpture and architect, establishing a major school of followers who worked primarily in marble and bronze.

The wooden tabernacle in which the model is housed dates from the early 16th century. Around 1550 the model was in the collection of Giovanni Gaddi in Florence, and in 1766 the painter and art critic Ignazio Hugford bought it from the Casa Gaddi. Hugford may have been responsible for repainting the now faded landscape on the back board. The model then entered the collection of Ottavio Gigli in 1855, and was one of the works acquired for the Museum from the Gigli-Campana Collection.