Jan Boeckhorst Münster or Rees circa 1604 - 1668 Antwerp

Formerly identified as a work by Rubens himself, the attribution to Boeckhorst was first suggested by Hans Vlieghe and has subsequently been endorsed by him following recent cleaning of the panel (letter of March 2000). He suggests that this is a relatively youthful work by Boeckhorst from around 1640, comparable, for example, to the artists's rendering of the same subject in his altarpiece of Calvary in the Church of Saint Peter in Lo (reproduced in H. Lahrkamp and G. Langemeyer, "Johann Boeckhorst", in Westfalen Hefte für Geschichte Kunst und Volkskunde, vol. LX, 1981/2, p. 46, no. 17). At this date, Boeckhorst's style was particularly close to that of Rubens. As Lahrkamp points out, he would no doubt have been aware of Rubens' own treatments of this subject, in particular his painting now in Antwerp and the related drawing which had been popularised through Pontius' famous engraving of 1631 (for which see J.R. Judson, Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard. vol. VI. The Passion of Christ, Antwerp 2000, pp. 123-131, nos. 30-32a, reproduced).