Follower of Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, circa 1642

Raymond Gueneau de Mussy Sere de Riviers Garnier and Isidora Cousiño Goyenechea Sebire, Paris 1918,

Thence by descent within the family, until sold, New York, Sotheby's, 8 June 2017, lot 52;

Where acquired.

This works relates to Rembrandt van Rijn’s Descent from the Cross of 1633, now in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich (inventory number 395), one of seven scenes of the Passion painted for Stadtholder Frederik Hendrik van Oranje. While the present work adheres closely to the Munich panel, it differs in format, adapting the rounded top into a rectangle. Dendrochronological analysis dates the panel to circa 1642, suggesting it was executed about a decade after Rembrandt’s original. 

The nocturnal scene depicts the careful lowering of Christ’s body from the cross, a subject to which Rembrandt repeatedly returned in the early 1630s. The cross dominates the composition, set slightly oblique to the picture plane and animated by a shaft of light from the left that isolates the central action against a darkened background. Christ’s pale, lifeless body is supported by two men on ladders and received by figures below, while a man in a fur cap, doubled over atop the cross, grasps Christ’s shroud. To the right, Joseph of Arimathea stands apart in a fur cloak and turban. At left, the Virgin faints and is supported by three kneeling women, one raising her hands in anguish, while indistinct heads recede into darkness, reinforcing the sense of communal mourning.