page_title: The Entombment (Bouts)
section_title: Provenance and attribution
hierarchical_section_title: The Entombment (Bouts) / Provenance and attribution
caption_attribution_description: English: "The Entombment" by Martin Schongauer
context_page_description: The Entombment is a glue-size painting on linen attributed to the Early Netherlandish painter Dieric Bouts. It shows a scene from the biblical entombment of Christ, and was probably completed between 1440 and 1455 as a wing panel for a large hinged polyptych altarpiece. The now-lost altarpiece is thought to have contained a central crucifixion scene flanked by four wing panel works half its height – two on either side – depicting scenes from the life of Christ. The smaller panels would have been paired in a format similar to Bouts's 1464–1468 Altarpiece of the Holy Sacrament. The larger work was probably commissioned for export to Italy, possibly to a Venetian patron whose identity is lost. The Entombment was first recorded in a mid-19th century Milan inventory and has been in the National Gallery, London, since its purchase on the gallery's behalf by Charles Lock Eastlake in 1861.
  The painting is an austere but affecting portrayal of sorrow and grief. It shows four female and three male mourners grieving over the body of Christ.
context_section_description: Bouts did not inscribe any of his paintings, which makes attribution and dating difficult. His developing skill with perspective and unified vanishing points is used by art historians to date his works from the period. Although its colourisation is among the best of his work, the perspective is clumsy in areas, thus the painting can be assumed to date no later than 1460. Bouts often quoted visual passages from artists and paintings that influenced his work, so the influences are well established and datable.  Along with the companion Resurrection, British art historian Martin Davies believes the work shows influences from Rogier van der Weyden's Descent (c. 1435) and Miraflores Altarpiece (1440s), which places it after 1440. Robert Koch dates it to between 1450 and 1455.
  During a period of aggressive acquisition intended to establish the international prestige of Britain's collection, it was acquired for the National Gallery in 1860 in Milan from the Guicciardi family by Charles Lock Eastlake for just over £120, along with a number of other Netherlandish works. Eastlake's notes mention that the works were "originally in the possession of the Foscari family". The Foscaris were a wealthy Venetian family which included Francesco Foscari who was Doge of Venice at the time the work was painted; the dramatic story of him and his son is told in Lord Byron's play The Two Foscari, and Verdi's opera I due Foscari. There is no documentary evidence to substantiate the claim that the painting came from the Foscari  collection, and some art historians believe that representatives of the Guicciardis invented this provenance to impress Eastlake. Lorne Campbell considers the provenance "probable", noting that a descendant, Ferigo Foscari (1732–1811), an ambassador to Saint Petersburg, squandered his fortune and may have been forced into selling pictures belonging to the family. Campbell speculates that the painting was produced on commission for export to Venice, noting that unrolled linen would have been easier to transport than canvas, and that the row of holes just below the upper border could be explained if it had been stretched, mounted and framed by someone other than Bouts or a member of his workshop.
  The companion pieces in the Guicciardi collection (Annunciation, Adoration of the Kings, and Resurrection) were similar works in glue-size, though of lesser quality; Eastlake's notebooks mention that they were "not so good (not so well preserved)". Their style and size are similar to The Entombment, suggesting that they were probably pieces that would have formed part of the larger polyptych. The Entombment was attributed to Lucas van Leyden at the time, though Eastlake thought that, given its emotional power, it might be a van der Weyden. Bouts studied under van der Weyden, and was strongly influenced by his work. Davies proposed in 1953 that the figuration and pose in The Entombment may have been informed by a small grisaille relief in the arch of the central panel of van der Weyden's Miraflores Altarpiece.
  The painting arrived in London from Milan in 1861, but was not attributed to Bouts until 1911. Two known copies exist: an unsophisticated panel sold in Munich to a private collector in 1934, and an oak panel attributed to a follower  which is in Kreuzlingen, Switzerland.
  The influence of Netherlandish painting spread to central Europe in the late 15th century, and many copies or designs based on the work of the Netherlandish masters were produced. The influence of Bouts's Entombment can be seen in the German artist Martin Schongauer's c. 1480  engraving of the same name; it not only has compositional similarity but echoes Bouts's use of emotive gesture, posture and expression.
caption: The Entombment, engraving by Martin Schongauer, c. 1480. Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design.
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