Provenance

Harriet Hampden, Viscountess Hampden

British, 1751 - 1829

Explore Selected Works

The lifeless body of a bearded young man partly wrapped in an ivory cloth is being lowered from a cross to a group of people at its foot in this vertical painting. All the people have peachy or pale skin, and most are dressed in cream white and shades of brown. The body and head of the dead man, Jesus, slump to our left, eyes closed and mouth hanging open. His arms and hands are streaked with red, and drips of blood dot his head. Two men on ladders propped against the back of the cross reach over the top crossbar, and one man on our right holds Jesus’s left wrist. A long white cloth is draped over the crossbar and falls to wrap around Jesus’s hips. Two more men stand on the ladders on either side of the cross, one with his arm around Jesus’s torso while the other reaches forward to hold a torch that dramatically lights the cluster of bodies. An older man with white hair and beard, wearing a scarlet-red tunic, stands in front and cradles the hips and legs of Jesus as he is lowered. Six people stand to the right of the old man and the cross. A strong light falls on the face of a pale, older woman. Her eyes are closed, her mouth open, and her arms limp as she is caught by the people around her. The men in the group wear hats and the women’s heads are covered with scarves. From the shadows to the left of the cross, near the edge of the painting, the pale face of a woman peers onto the scene. The landscape behind the cross and group is deep in shadow, but rust-red streaks line the horizon in the distance.
Dutch 17th Century, Constantijn van Renesse, The Descent from the Cross, 1650/1652, oil on canvas, Widener Collection, 1942.9.61

The Descent from the Cross

Dutch 17th Century, Constantijn van Renesse · 1650/1652 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1942.9.61

We look slightly down onto a group of people gathered along the bank of a river that winds around a copse of tall trees to our left, past a hill to our right, and into the deep distance in this horizontal landscape painting. The horizon line comes about a third of the way up the painting. More than a dozen people gather to converse in pairs or trios, or work loading a ship in the lower right corner of the composition. Most of the people seem to be men, except for two women who stand near a man who gestures to our left at the lower center of the painting. The people we can see have light or tanned skin. The men loading the boat to our right wear pants and shirts in navy blue, gray, tan, or crimson red. Men wearing hats and capes over suits near the lower center, and the women wear clothing in olive green, butter yellow, petal pink, coral red, or gray. Goods are strewn along the riverbank closest to us, including potted flowering plants to our left, a jumble of chairs, tables, and musical instruments nearby, and collections of wooden barrels to our right and in the lower left corner. Two more boats are moored at the shore in front of the grove of tall, dark green, leafy trees that take up the left third of the composition. The sage-green surface of the river curves to our right, to a tree-covered hill with a watermill at its base. A stone structure with a large, central, round tower sits along the top of that hill. The river continues to wind into the deep distance, where towns nestle along the bases of rolling, slate-blue mountains along the horizon. The sky above is pale yellow along the horizon and deepens to pale blue above. Smoke-gray clouds sweeping in from the right are lit bright cream-white where the sun catches the edges. The artist signed and dated the painting as if he had written his name on the side of the boat in the lower left corner, though the inscription appears to be incomplete: “CLAVDIO o I Vo 16 9 OM.”
Claude Lorrain, Landscape with Merchants, c. 1629, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.5.44

Landscape with Merchants

Claude Lorrain · c. 1629 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1952.5.44