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His followers lift Andreas gracefully from the cross and cover his body with cloths. This act of reverence seems almost like a bow to the deceased. Another disciple punishes the sceptics with glances as he carefully loosens the preacher's bonds. Putti break through the cloudy sky and a light source envelops the moving scene in a comforting warm light. The expressive movements of the figures are effectively displayed by means of body language and the interplay of light and dark. The luminous, atmospheric space, the warm colour palette, the intricately moving, muscular bodies, the draperies or the delicate, almost pathetic gestures and facial expressions of the figures allude to Giordano's role models such as Caravaggio, Veronese or his teacher Jusepe de Ribera.
The painting is a repetition of the Deposition of St. Andrew (oil on canvas, 170 x 225 cm) for the Martyrdom cycle in the parish church of Pedrengo near Padua, which Luca Giordano produced around 1650-1654. Three other paintings in the church dedicated to St. Evasio depict the sufferings of Saints Bartholomew, Peter and Paul. The present composition corresponds to the painting of St. Andrew in Pedrengo, differing only in its smaller size (cf. Oreste Ferrari/Giuseppe Scavizzi, Luca Giordano. L'opera completa, Naples 1992, p. 254, no. A21, p. 468 (b/w fig. 81)).