UTRECHT SCHOOL, 17TH CENTURY | The Entombment

R. Bolleurs Collection, London;
M.M. Mazure Collection, London.

J.R. Judson and R.E.O. Ekkart, Gerrit van Honthorst 1592-1656, Doornspijk 1999, p. 90, under cat. no. 67, as copy no. 1, reproduced fig. 30 (as a copy after Gerrit van Honthorst).

In their monograph on Van Honthorst Judson and Ekkart described this painting, as well as two others, as copies after a lost composition by Gerrit van Honthorst (1592-1656), executed in the early 1620s (see under Literature). The main figures. St. John, the Virgin and Joseph of Arimathea, reflect Van Honthorst's figural types from this period. Judson and Ekkart also list that that it is conceivable that our painting was executed by Hendrick Bloemaert (1601-1672) after a lost Honthorst. Furthermore another name has recently come up as a possible artist, the Utrecht painter Lumen Portengen (1608-1649); there are two very similar compositions of The Entombment in the collection of the Centraal Museum, Utrecht (see L.M. Helmus, Schilderkunst tot 1850 (Centraal Museum Utrecht), Utrecht 1999, pp. 1260-1261, nos. 514 and 515, reproduced).