The Dead Christ in the Tomb with Two Angels
Abraham Janssen van Nuyssen
ca. 1610 · Oil on canvas · European Paintings
Janssen joined the painters' guild in Antwerp in 1601, just after returning from a few years of study in Rome. From about 1606 until 1612 he worked in a strongly Caravaggesque manner; this canvas is a typical example of about 1610. The subject, sometimes described as an "angel pietà," can be traced to Byzantine prototypes but was popular with recent north Italian artists such as Tintoretto. The canvas was probably commissioned as an altarpiece, and its resemblance to polychromed sculpture (a quality Rubens criticized in contemporary Flemish painting) gives it an iconic power favored by the Counter Reformation Church in the Spanish Netherlands.
- Artist
- Abraham Janssen van Nuyssen
- Date
- ca. 1610
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Department
- European Paintings
- Credit line
- Gift of James Belden, in memory of Evelyn Berry Belden, 1971
