The support consists of two vertically grained oak planks (15.5 and 28.5 cm), planed down to a thickness of 0.5 cm and cradled. The panel may be slightly trimmed on the right and left sides. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1489. The panel could have been ready for use by 1500, but a date in or after 1514 is more likely. The white ground, which is visible at the edges of the paint layers, must have been applied in the frame. There are unpainted edges 0.2-0.4 cm wide on all sides, and traces of a barbe (painted surface: 54.2 x 43.3 cm). An extensive and detailed underdrawing, executed with the brush in a wet medium, is partially visible with the naked eye, and could be revealed almost completely with infrared reflectography. The underdrawing was followed in the reserves left for the figures. Infrared reflectography detected several changes in the heads of the apostles to the left of St John (fig. a), and shows that the right foreground, where the apostles are going down the hill, was originally planned to be higher up. The foliage of the tree beside the tower was indicated with broad curved lines in the underdrawing (fig. b). The city, the city gate and the overhanging rock just to the right of the tree were drawn with a finer brush (fig. c). The rear city wall, which ran below the blue mountains on the right and behind the overhanging rock in the underdrawing, was not painted in.

Van Asperen de Boer/Wheelock 1973, pp. 83-93; Wallert et al. 2009

Good. The painting is slightly abraded at the centre of the Virgin’s robe and there are paint losses.

…; Leopold Freiherr von Bettendorf, Aachen, 1822;¹¹Heller 1827, p. 134, no. 2. …; sale, Graf Fürstenberg, Gräfliche Schloss (Bonn), General von Graeve (†) (Koblenz), Dr Christian Widenmann (†) (Cologne), Cologne (J.M. Heberle), 6 August 1877 sqq., no. 9, as Albrecht Dürer, monogrammed and dated 1505, DM 360;²²Copy RKD. …; from the dealer F. Kleinberger, Paris, fl. 2,885, to the museum, as Dutch school, c. 1530, with support from the Vereniging Rembrandt, June 1897; on loan to the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, 2004-10

Object number: SK-A-1719

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt

Just prior to entering Jerusalem, Christ is taking leave of his mother, her two sisters and Mary Magdalen in accordance with the description given by Pseudo-Bonaventura in his Meditationes vitae Christi.⁵⁵Ragusa/Green 1961, pp. 305-07. As described in the Meditationes, the leave-taking is situated by the town gate of Bethany, with the apostles in attendance.⁶⁶Kirschbaum I, 1968, cols. 35-36; Gibson 1969a, p. 125, notes 80-81. The emotion of the moving last embrace is heightened by the gestures of the women and the apostles. Four of the latter are making off down the hill on the right on their way to Jerusalem, the gate of which can be seen in the right background.

As with Christ’s Second Visit to the House of Mary and Martha (SK-A-2232) from the same series, the scene was prepared very painstakingly with a varied underdrawing (fig. a, fig. b, fig. c). The shaded passages within the bold contours were drawn with a great variety of parallel hatchings that follow the folds of the draperies, with cross-hatchings being applied for the dark red passages. Great care was taken over the hands. There are frequently delicate strokes of parallel hatching over the backs of the hands and the individual fingers, and many of the painted fingers are longer than in the underdrawing (fig. a). This manner of drawing the hands and faces, which is typical of Engebrechtsz, is also found in the Leiden altarpieces,⁷⁷Van Asperen de Boer/Wheelock 1973, pp. 70-71, 76-77, 87, 92-93. which is further confirmation of the attribution to Engebrechtsz, although that has never been disputed.

The rocky, imaginary landscape in cool blue tints, and the delicately executed underdrawing are also seen in the background of the left wing and central panel of the Vienna Triptych with Elisha Healing Naaman at the River Jordan, which was made in Engebrechtsz’s workshop around 1520.⁸⁸Kunsthistorisches Museum; illustrated in ENP X, 1973, no. 67, pls. 54-55; Gibson 1969a, pp. 128-33, 234, no. 1; Filedt Kok et al. 2014, pp. 100-05, 184 (cat. no. 1) . Although the painting of that triptych is largely the work of an assistant (probably Pieter Cornelisz named Kunst), the landscape and its underdrawing are so close to those in the Amsterdam panel that this part was probably painted by Engebrechtsz himself.⁹⁹Filedt Kok 1999, pp. 22-27; Filedt Kok et al. 2014, pp. 103-04. Similar rock formations are also found on the wings of Engebrechtsz’s documented Triptych with the Crucifixion in Leiden.¹⁰¹⁰Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal; illustrated in ENP X, 1973, no. 71, pls. 61-62; Filedt Kok et al. 2014, pp. 30-37.

The icy, blue-white colouring of the mountains, rocks and buildings in the Amsterdam panel are in marked contrast to the warm, bright palette used for the foreground figures. The fairly broad manner, which actually becomes sketchy in the background, with little concern for ornamental details, is typical of Engebrechtsz and the Leiden painters he trained. This painting can be dated c. 1515-20 on the basis of the similarities to the Triptych with the Crucifixion in Leiden, as can Christ’s Second Visit to the House of Mary and Martha (SK-A-2232) from the same series.

Updated by J.P. Filedt Kok, 2017

Dülberg 1899a, pp. 70-71, 83; Wescher 1924, p. 98; Gavelle 1929, p. 290; Friedländer X, 1932, pp. 66, 131, no. 82; Hoogewerff III, 1939, pp. 179-83; Pelinck 1948, p. 59; Amsterdam 1958, p. 104, no. 116; Gibson 1969a, pp. 107-11, 239, no. 11; Van Asperen de Boer/Wheelock 1973, pp. 65, 67, 88-93; ENP X, 1973, p. 78, no. 81; Filedt Kok in Van Os 'et al.' 2000, pp. 127-28; Filedt Kok in Rotterdam 2008a, pp. 232-34, no. 39

1903, p. 6, no. 49 (as Dutch school, beginning 16th century); 1921, p. 371, no. 904a; 1934, p. 95, no. 904a; 1960, p. 96, no. 905 A1; 1976, p. 220, no. A 1719