REMBRANDT Harmenszoon van Rijn
(b. 1606, Leiden, d. 1669, Amsterdam)

Entombment of Christ

c. 1635
Oil on panel, 32 x 41 cm
Hunterian Art Gallery, Glasgow

Catalogue number: Bredius 554.

This monochrome sketch in oils is fairly closely related to the painting of the same subject (in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich) which Rembrandt completed in 1639 as part of a series on the Life of Christ for the Stadholder, Prince Frederick-Hendrick of Orange (1584-1647).

Rembrandt normally used drawings rather than oil sketches as preparatory studies for his paintings, and some scholars have therefore concluded that the Glasgow sketch was originally made for an etching, which was not in the event executed. This sketch is remarkably free in handling and is in some ways technically closer to Rembrandt's drawings and etchings than to his paintings.




© Web Gallery of Art, created by Emil Krén and Daniel Marx.