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The Descent from the Cross

Not on view
The Master of the Holy Blood, an uninventive and repetitive artist who appears to have been trained in Antwerp and to have settled in Bruges, takes his name from a Lamentation altarpiece in the Heilig Bloedmuseum, Bruges. The center panel of the present work is a late reflection of a lost but often copied Descent from the Cross by Rogier van der Weyden. To this essentially fifteenth-century composition have been added wings with individual saints that show the influence of the early-sixteenth-century Antwerp painter, Quentin Massys. There is in-painting along several vertical splits and joins which had separated, particularly in the center panel.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: The Descent from the Cross
  • Artist: Master of the Holy Blood (Netherlandish, ca. 1520)
  • Medium: Oil on wood
  • Dimensions: Central panel, overall 36 x 28 1/2 in. (91.4 x 72.4 cm), painted surface 35 5/8 x 28 1/2 in. (90.5 x 72.4 cm); left panel, overall 36 x 12 3/8 in. (91.4 x 31.4 cm), painted surface 35 1/2 x 12 3/8 in.(90.2 x 31.4 cm); right panel, overall 35 7/8 x 12 5/8 in. (91.1 x 32.1 cm), painted surface 35 3/8 x 12 1/2 in. (89.9 x 31.8 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: Gift of Clyde Fitch and Ferdinand Gottschalk, 1917
  • Object Number: 17.187a–c
  • Curatorial Department: European Paintings

More Artwork

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The Crucifixion with Saints and a Donor, Joos van Cleve and a collaborator Netherlandish, Oil on wood
The Crucifixion with Saints and a Donor
Joos van Cleve
ca. 1520
The Penitence of Saint Jerome, Joachim Patinir Netherlandish, Oil on wood
The Penitence of Saint Jerome
Joachim Patinir
ca. 1515
The Adoration of the Magi, Quinten Massys Netherlandish, Oil on wood
The Adoration of the Magi
Quinten Massys
1526
The Annunciation, Hans Memling Netherlandish, Oil on wood
The Annunciation
Hans Memling
ca. 1465–70
Portrait of a Woman, Quinten Massys Netherlandish, Oil on wood
Portrait of a Woman
Quinten Massys
ca. 1520

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