Christ as Saviour of the World, Anthony van Dyck (after), c. 1620 - c. 1630 – (Anthony Van Dyck) ◄ Tidigare Nästa ►

Konstnär: Anthony Van Dyck

datum: 1630

storlek: 49 x 1 cm

Teknik: Oil On Canvas

Exceptionally accepted by Larsen as autograph,7 the present picture is a fluently executed copy after Anthony van Dyck’s prototype in the Bildergalerie, Schloss Sanssouci.8 This was painted during Van Dyck’s first Antwerp period (c. 1613-20), perhaps towards its end, as De Poorter has proposed. The primed reverse of the oak support of the Rijksmuseum painting results from a typical Antwerp practice of the time (see under SK-A-590), and this copy could have been painted not long after the prototype and perhaps in Van Dyck’s studio. The dendrochronological dating of the support makes this latter supposition only a possibility. The original measurements of the Sanssouci painting, as given by De Poorter, are practically the same as those of the Rijksmuseum copy. She believes that Christ in the former was ‘in an initial stage’ depicted ‘without hands and globe’. If such was indeed the case, the copy would have been made after the globe and hand had been added but before the prototype received its substantial enlargements. De Poorter suggests that Van Dyck in devising the composition may have been influenced by Rubens’s (1577-1640) lost portrayals of Christ and the Virgin.9 Another source of inspiration (and not mutually exclusive) may well have been Titian’s (c. 1488-1576) Christ Blessing (State Hermitage Museum) or a version of it.10 The composition was later engraved by Schelte Adamsz Bolswert (1584/1588-1659), and the print published by Gillis Hendrickx (active from c. 1645).11 The field differs, as do the placement of the fingers and configuration of the eyes. The print has the rubric Salvator Mundi (Saviour of the World). Christ is shown in the act of blessing, while his left hand rests on the globe of the world. Gregory Martin, 2022