Support The plain-weave canvas has been wax-resin lined. The tacking edges have been preserved at the top and bottom, though trimmed, the ones on the left and right have been removed. The initial sight size of the painting must have been larger, since the picture plane is folded over the current stretcher on the left and right.
Preparatory layers The single, beige ground extends up to the tacking edges at the top and bottom and up to the current edges of the canvas on the left and right.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the tacking edges at the top and bottom and up to the current edges of the canvas on the left and right. An undermodelling in brownish tones is visible at some contours. The composition was built up from the back to the front, with reserves for the figures. The clothing was painted wet in wet, blending the light and shaded areas together. A stiff dry brush was used in the Virgin’s veil, leaving a distinct, striped pattern. The flesh tones, also applied wet in wet, were finished with warm glazes and cool scumbles. The shadows on Christ’s body were indicated with deep red glazes, for instance in the navel, giving depth and translucency to the skin. There is impasto in the flesh tones, the background and the clothing.
Michel van de Laar, 2008

Fair. There are several areas with large, repaired tears, some of which are out of plane. These are covered by generous, discoloured retouchings. The darkest area of the background has turned greyish and has been partially overpainted. Parts of the undermodelling originally left visible have been covered with overpaint.

…; on loan from Adrianus Daniel de Vries Azn (1851-1884) to the KOG, 1879-84;¹¹Jaarverslag Koninklijk Oudheidkundig Genootschap 1879, p. 26. donated by his family to the KOG, 1884;²²Jaarverslag Koninklijk Oudheidkundig Genootschap 1884, p. 20. on loan from the KOG to the museum since 1889; on loan to Museum Amstelkring, Amsterdam, March 1980-August 1981

Object number: SK-C-522

Credit line: On loan from the Koninklijk Oudheidkundig Genootschap

This Lamentation of 1640 has several points of similarity to Pieter de Grebber’s Descent from the Cross of seven years earlier.⁷⁷SK-A-2311. Christ’s dead body is once again placed diagonally in the picture plane, and the figures of Christ and the Virgin also form a triangle. Like the altarpiece of 1633, this painting is reminiscent of Flemish works,⁸⁸R. Kultzen, Michael Sweerts: Brussels 1618 - Goa 1664, Doornspijk 1996, p. 54. See, for instance, Anthony van Dyck’s altarpiece in Antwerp, Royal Museum of Fine Arts; illustrated in E. Vandamme (ed.), Catalogus schilderkunst: Oude meesters, coll. cat. Antwerp (Royal Museum of Fine Arts) 1988, p. 116. although the display of emotion is less intense and the composition more tranquil. Rembrandt’s influence on De Grebber’s output is no longer discernible in this period. The balanced composition and the self-restrained poses of the figures make this a distinctly classicist work. The artist paid great attention to the anatomy, a skill for which he received considerable praise from Philips Angel in 1642,⁹⁹P. Angel, Lof der Schilderkonst, Leiden 1642 – trans. M. Hoyle and annot. H. Miedema, ‘Philips Angel, Praise of Painting’, Simiolus 24 (1996), pp. 227-58, esp. p. 248. but the result is not entirely successful, since Christ’s body is far too long in relation to his head.

De Grebber did not set the scene at the foot of the Cross but in a cave, where Christ is to be buried. He is surrounded by the three Marys. Two unusual features are the Virgin’s black veil and the red cloth on which Christ’s body rests. The white shroud on which he was traditionally depicted is being held by one of the figures in the right background, identifying him as Joseph of Arimathea, who had bought fine linen in which to wrap Christ’s body. One of the other figures outside the cave is Nicodemus, who is recognizable from the jar containing myrrh and aloes that he brought for the burial after the descent from the Cross (Mark 15:46; John 19:39). The third man in this group could be St John. The abrupt truncation of the scene on the right suggests that the painting was cut down on this side, and technical examination gives reason to believe that this rather square canvas was originally wider.¹⁰¹⁰See Technical notes. The composition is related to a slightly earlier Entombment by De Grebber, in which there is also a second group of figures in the background.¹¹¹¹Panel, 97 x 139.5 cm; sale, Amsterdam (Sotheby's), 22 May 1989, no. 50 (ill.).

It is not known who commissioned the Rijksmuseum canvas, but the subject and the dimensions suggest that it came from a church. Van Eck argued that the original horizontal format made it more suitable for a wall in a private chapel or a clandestine church than as an altarpiece.¹²¹²X. van Eck, ‘Een kwijnend bisdom nieuw leven ingeblazen: Pieter de Grebber en het Haarlems kapittel’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 52 (2004), pp. 254-69, esp. p. 260. One possibility, given the fact that Christ is being mourned only by the three Marys, is that it was painted as a devotional work for a small community of Catholic women, such as the Begijnhof, where De Grebber himself lived.¹³¹³With thanks to Pieter van Thiel for this suggestion. See P. Dirkse, Begijnen, pastoors en predikanten: Religie en kunst in de Gouden Eeuw, Leiden 2001, pp. 147-50, for another painting that may have been made for the clandestine church of the Haarlem beguinage.

Gerdien Wuestman, 2026

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

X. van Eck, ‘Een kwijnend bisdom nieuw leven ingeblazen: Pieter de Grebber en het Haarlems kapittel’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 52 (2004), pp. 254-69, esp. p. 260

1903, p. 108, no. 1001; 1934, p. 111, no. 1001; 1960, p. 116, no. 1001; 1976, p. 248, no. C 522

Gerdien Wuestman, 2026, 'Pieter de Grebber, The Lamentation, 1640', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20027969