Christ on the Cross

Anton van Dyck

Cristo en la Cruz

Dyck, Anton van

Amberes, 1599 - Londres, 1641

Christ on the Cross, c. 1627

© Colección Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza

Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection
Location: Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum, Madrid

Oil on panel

105,3 x 73 cm

CTB.1995.26

Artwork history

  • Galerie Sanct Lucas, Vienna.

  • Private collection, Vienna, 1931.

  • Baron Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, prior to 1931.

  •  Bentinck-Thyssen Collection, Paris.

  • Kunstmuseum, Dusseldorf, around 1976. (on loan).

  • Musées de l’État, Luxembourg, around 1987. (on loan).

  • Sotheby’s sale, lot 91, London, December 6th, 1995.

  • Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection.

1986

Chefs-d´oeuvre de la Collection Bentinck-Thyssen, Tokyo, Nihonbashi Takashimaya Art Galleries; Kumamoto, Kumamoto Prefectural Museum of Art; Toyama, Art Museum; Miyagi, Miyagi Museum of Art, nº 20.

1986 - 1987

Collection Bentinck- Thyssen.  De Brueghel à Guardi, Lausana, Musée de l´Hermitage; Paris, Musée Marmottan; Luxembourg, Musées de l’État; Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, nº 20.

2001

De Van Dyck a Goya. Maestros Antiguos de la Colección Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza, Castellón, Museo de Bellas Artes, nº 2, p. 36.

2013

Fe y fervor en la Colección Carmen Thyssen. Simone Martini, Van Dyck, Gauguin, Málaga, Museo Carmen Thyssen Málaga, pp. 41 and 43, illus. p. 40, det. p. 42.

  • –Glück, G.: Van Dyck. New York, 1931, nº 220, p. 542.

  • -Heinemann, Rudolf J.: Stiftung Sammlung Schloss Rohoncz. Lugano-Castagnola, 1937, vol. 1, nº 130a, pp. 49-50.

  • –Vey, H. y Kesting, A.: Katalog der Niederländischen Gemälde von 1550-1800 im Wallraf-Richartz-Museum und im Öffentlichen Besitz der Stadt Köln. Cologne, 1967, p. 43.

  • –Andree, R.: Malerei ausgewählte Werke. [Museum cat.]. Dusseldorf, Kunstmuseum, 1976, nº 5.

  • –Larsen, Erik: L’opera completa di Van Dyck. Milan, Rizzoli, 1980. Classici dell’arte; vol. 102-103, vol. 2, nº 591a, p. 119.

  • –Larsen, Erik: The paintings of Anthony van Dyck. Freren, Luca, 1988, vol. 2, nº 716, pp. 286-287, illus.

  • –Sotheby’s (aut. corp.): Old Master Paintings and Works of Art. From the Bentinck-Thyssen Collection. [Auction cat.]. London, December 6th, 1995, nº 91, illus.

  • –De Van Dyck a Goya. Maestros antiguos de la Colección Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza. Llorens, Tomàs (curator). [Exhib. cat. Castellón, Museo de Bellas Artes]. València, Generalitat Valenciana, 2001, nº 2, p. 36. [Sheet by Tomàs Llorens].

  • –Colección Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza. Arnaldo, Javier (ed.). 2 vols. Madrid, Fundación Colección Thyssen-Bornemisza, 2004, vol. 1, p. 84, illus. p. 85 [ Sheet by Tomàs Llorens].

  • –Díaz Padrón, Matías [et al.]: Van Dyck en España. Volume II, Historia y Mitología. Editorial Prensa Ibérica, Barcelona, 2012., vol. I, nº 15, pp. 290 (illus.) and 291.

  • -Fe y fervor en la Colección Carmen Thyssen. Simone Martini, Van Dyck, Gauguin, Málaga, Museo Carmen Thyssen Málaga, [Exhib. Cat. Museo Carmen Thyssen Málaga], 2013. pp. 41 & 43, illus. p. 40, det. p. 42. [Sheet by Tomàs Llorens].

  • -Colección Carmen Thyssen. Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza. Ed. Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, 2024. P. 28-29  [Sheet by Tomás Llorens]

Expert report

When he returned to Antwerp after his sojourn in Italy, Anton van Dyck painted several Crucifixions for different churches in that city. Related to those altarpieces, he also executed others with a smaller format in which he only represented Christ on the Cross, without secondary figures. The paintings were probably intended for the private worship and show the Redeemer’s loneliness during his agony, when he complained that His Father had abandoned him.

Several versions of this composition are considered as workshop paintings or made by artists within his circle. The signed version taken as reference belongs to the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten in Antwerp. We know that Van Dyck painted it in 1627 for the prior of the Augustinian convent in that city.

The version shown here was first published in 1930 by G. Glück, who considered it autographical. In general terms, later bibliographies have followed his opinion. Larsen (1988), for example, mentions its sketchy style, “which confirms its authenticity”. Yet the unknown author who comments on this painting in the corresponding catalogue entry of Sotheby’s auction of 1995 described it as belonging to the “circle of Sir Anthony van Dyck”, saying that “although the literature has never doubted its traditional attribution to Anthony van Dyck, many contemporary scholars do not accept it; some of them would rather attribute it to Jean Boeckhorst, and Michael Jaffé attributes it to this artist without doubt”. Nevertheless, Jaffé’s attribution to Boeckhorst has apparently not been published. Neither does it appear in any unpublished report, as stated in a letter of 25 June 2001 from Sotheby’s to the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum.

When the painting was examined in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum’s restoration workshop, in August 2001, traces of a previous composition, visible with the naked eye and legible if the panel is rotated ninety degrees, were discovered. They are fragments of a sketch, made with a brush, of a figure between two animals in a wood or surrounded by a clump of trees.

The fact that the author of this Crucifixion used a panel in which another subject was already sketched, without completely covering the drawing of the previous composition, confirms what can be deduced from its highly strung and quick execution, namely that it was a modello or study to be kept in the workshop, a fact that would confirm the original-and not derivative-character of this work. The traditional attribution to Van Dyck should thus be maintained and, according to what has already been said, its date must be, almost certainly, the same as the Antwerp version, that is 1627.

Tomás Llorens

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