Full title | Lamentation |
---|---|
Artist | Gerard David |
Artist dates | active 1484; died 1523 |
Series | Two Panels from an Altarpiece |
Date made | 1515-23 |
Medium and support | Oil on oak |
Dimensions | 63 x 62.1 cm |
Acquisition credit | Bequeathed by Mrs Joseph H. Green, 1880 |
Inventory number | NG1078 |
Location | Room 14 |
Art route(s) | C |
Collection | Main Collection |
Christ’s body has just been brought down from the Cross and is being prepared for burial – the square door to his tomb is visible in the rock face on the right. His mother embraces him tenderly, while Mary Magdalene anoints his feet. Another woman washes his wounds with water from a brass basin while Saint John the Evangelist, in red, supports the body on its shroud.
The men entering through a gate on the right are the two secret converts to Christianity: Nicodemus, who brought spices to embalm Christ’s body, and Joseph of Arimathea, who gained permission to bury him after the Crucifixion.
It is likely that this painting formed part of a series of the life of Christ painted by David as part of polyptych (a multi-panelled altarpiece). His Adoration of the Kings, also in the National Gallery’s collection, probably comes from the same altarpiece.
Christ’s body has just been brought down from the Cross and is being prepared for burial. The three large nails removed from his hands and feet lie below the ladder, and the crown of thorns is below the jug on the left. Saint John the Evangelist supports the body on its shroud, and the Virgin Mary embraces her son tenderly. On the right, Mary Magdalene anoints Christ’s feet with ointment from a small pot – her attribute. She is also identified by the inscription on her headdress (‘M.A.M.A’, standing for Maria Magdalena), and her action, recalling how she previously anointed his feet at Bethany.
Another woman washes Christ’s wounds with water from a brass basin, a second supports the Virgin and a third looks on sadly. The men entering through a gate on the right are the two secret Jewish converts to Christianity: Nicodemus, who brought spices to embalm Christ’s body, and Joseph of Arimathea, who gained permission to bury him after the Crucifixion. According to the Gospel of John, Christ was crucified in a garden in which there was an unused tomb – presumably the area fenced in by wooden palings here, with the open door of a rock tomb beyond.
The Lamentation is not included in the biblical account of the Crucifixion, but was found in the apocryphal gospels and described in detail in medieval devotional literature. It became very popular in northern European art in the later Middle Ages. This painting most likely formed one of a series of the life of Christ painted by David as part of polyptych (a multi-panelled altarpiece); the Adoration of the Kings very probably comes from the same altarpiece.
David often reused his own ideas and motifs and his followers, perhaps working from copies of his patterns, continued to repeat his compositions and to vary them by recombining different elements. The figures of Christ and the Virgin come ultimately from a design by Rogier van der Weyden, while Mary Magdalene’s head and her headdress recall David’s The Virgin and Child with Saints and Donor. The composition is related to that of a damaged Lamentation (Santa Barbara, California), which is sometimes given to David himself, and is certainly from his immediate circle.
When this painting was planned, the same design that served for the Santa Barbara Lamentation may have been used, together with pattern drawings of heads, draperies and hands. The composition is so well worked out that it would seem to have been conceived by David himself. However, there are many differences between the underdrawing and the final painted version. This suggests that some parts of the scene (in particular the woman at the far left) might have been sketched in by assistants following an initial design by David, who would then have corrected and altered them during the course of painting.
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Two Panels from an Altarpiece
These two paintings – the Adoration of the Magi and the Lamentation – most likely come from a polyptych (an altarpiece made up of several panels) painted by Gerard David and his assistants in the workshop he set up in Antwerp in 1515. They are roughly the same size and the figures are painted on the same scale, and have been together since at least the nineteenth century. They may have come from a lost altarpiece showing scenes from the life of Christ.
These two paintings – the Adoration of the Magi and the Lamentation – most likely come from a polyptych (an altarpiece made up of several panels) painted by Gerard David and his assistants in the workshop he set up in Antwerp in 1515.
Although we don‘t have any written evidence linking these paintings, they are roughly the same size, the figures are painted on the same scale and the horizon is at the same level in both. They have been together since at least the nineteenth century. The Lamentation is about 3 cm taller and wider than the Adoration of the Magi, and there are differences in how the panels are constructed, but this doesn’t rule out their being from the same series. They probably came from a lost altarpiece showing scenes from the life of Christ. The backs of both have been planed down; it is possible that they were once painted and intended to fold over a central panel. Although we don‘t know where the altarpiece was, it was likely to have been in Antwerp, where the Adoration was probably copied in the mid-sixteenth century.
We can reconstruct the history of these paintings from the early nineteenth century onwards. Both have pink papers on the back inscribed ’King‘. This might be Frederick Benjamin King, a grocer and sugar refiner who lived in Princes Square in the East End of London and who went bankrupt in 1829. They were first recorded in the collection of the German merchant Charles Aders, who put together one of the most significant collections of so-called ’primitives‘ – early Netherlandish and Italian artists – in England, also including Portrait of a Man (Jan van Winckele?) and The Virgin and Child with Saints and Donor.
By 1831 Aders’ financial affairs were in chaos and in 1832 he tried to sell his paintings to the National Gallery. Negotiations came to nothing and the works by David were eventually purchased by the eminent surgeon Joseph Henry Green, the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s literary executor. They were bequeathed to the Gallery by Green’s widow Anne Eliza in 1880, in accordance with his wishes.


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