Lot 1010 | The Descent from the Cross

ISENBRANT, ADRIAEN
ca. 1490 Antwerp - before 1551 Bruges


Workshop / School
Title: The Descent from the Cross.
Fragment (?).
Technique: Oil and tempera on wood.
Measurement: 30 x 23cm.
Frame/Pedestal: Framed.
Provenance:
Art market, England (1930s);
Private ownership, Germany.

The assignor and the communities of inheritors Nathan and Benjamin Katz have reached an agreement regarding possible existing restitution claims. The communities of inheritors Nathan and Benjamin Katz have not asserted any further claims with regard to this work.

The painting is registered in the RKD database under number 44895.

The present painting is to be regarded as a fragment of a larger composition, executed in Adriaen Isenbrandt's workshop. The still unknown apprentice probably took Isenbrandt's Descent from the Cross as his model, which is in Oxford at the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology (oil on wood, 37 x 28 cm). In the Oxford painting, St. John the Evangelist, the Holy Mother of God and Mary Magdalene, holding Christ's left arm, crowd around the figure of Christ. In our fragment the only partly visible arm of Christ is raised: It indicates the missing figure of Magdalene.

We are grateful to Guido de Werd, Cologne, for confirming the attribution of the present painting on the basis of a high-resolution digital photograph.