Hubert van Eyck or Jan van Eyck or both - The Three Marys at the Tomb - Google Art Project

''The Three Marys at the Tomb'' is a c. 1410–26 panel painting usually attributed to

Hubert van Eyck Hubert van Eyck () or Huybrecht van Eyck ( – 18 September 1426) was an Early Netherlandish painter and older brother of Jan van Eyck, as well as Lambert and Margareta, also painters. The absence of any single work that he can clearly be said to ...

, now in the

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Municipal Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen () is an art museum in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. The name of the museum is derived from the two most important collectors of Frans Jacob Otto Boijmans and Daniël George van Beuningen. It is located a ...

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"Ne ...

. The painting was included at the seminal

Exposition des primitifs flamands à Bruges The Exposition des primitifs flamands à Bruges (''Exhibition of Flemish Primitives at Bruges'') was an art exhibition of paintings by the so-called Flemish Primitives (nowadays usually called Early Netherlandish painters) held in the Provincia ...

in 1902. Its authorship and dating have been particularly difficult to establish. For many years it was ascribed the only surviving work—excepting the ''

Ghent Altarpiece The ''Adoration of the Mystic Lamb'', also called the ''Ghent Altarpiece'' ( nl, De aanbidding van het Lam Gods), is a large and complex 15th-century polyptych altarpiece in St Bavo's Cathedral, Ghent, Belgium. It was begun around the mid-1420 ...

''—by Hubert, Jan van Eyck's older brother.

Erwin Panofsky Erwin Panofsky (March 30, 1892 in Hannover – March 14, 1968 in Princeton, New Jersey) was a German-Jewish art historian, whose academic career was pursued mostly in the U.S. after the rise of the Nazi regime. Panofsky's work represents a high ...

believed it a collaboration between the two men (similar to the ''Ghent Altarpiece''); others see it as the c. 1440 output of a member of Jan's workshop, others again solely attribute Jan. Estimates of its date of completion range from 1410 to the year of Hubert's death, 1426.Ferrari, 68 The painting depicts a scene from the lives of the New Testament

Three Marys The Three Marys (also spelled Maries) are women mentioned in the canonical gospels' narratives of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, several of whom were, or have been considered by Christian tradition, to have been named Mary (the most c ...

;

The Virgin Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother ...

, Mary Magdalene and

Mary Salome In the New Testament, Salome was a follower of Jesus who appears briefly in the canonical gospels and in apocryphal writings. She is named by Mark as present at the crucifixion and as one of the Myrrhbearers, the women who found Jesus's empty ...

. They are shown grieving at the site of the

entombment of Christ The burial of Jesus refers to the entombment of the body of Jesus after crucifixion, before the eve of the sabbath described in the New Testament. According to the canonical gospel narratives, he was placed in a tomb by a councillor of the san ...

, shown to the left of the tomb, under a hill of jagged rock. To the left are three soldiers, each carrying weapons, and each of whom is asleep. The painting is made up of a series of parallel diagonal lines, most dominant are those between the Virgin and the angel, the angel's pathway, the lengths of the tomb, and the positions of the soldiers. The landscape contains buildings that resembles those in

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

. The sky above the city contains a small passage showing a flock of birds, the earliest depiction in Early Netherlandish painting, although seen again in the "Hermits" panel of the ''Ghent Altarpiece''.de Schryver, 143

Notes

Sources

* De Schryver, Antoine. ''The Prayer Book of Charles the Bold''. J. Paul Getty Museum, 2008. * Ferrari, Simone. ''Van Eyck: Masters of Art''. Munich: Prestel, 2013. * Nauert, Charles G. ''The A to Z of the Renaissance''. Scarecrow Press, 2013. {{DEFAULTSORT:Three Marys at the Tomb (Hubert van Eyck?), The 1410s paintings 1420s paintings Paintings of the Virgin Mary Angels in art Early Netherlandish paintings