Getty Museum
The Entombment
Creator
Lieven van LathemFlemish Illuminator · 1430–1493
All works by this person →One of the most successful illuminators in Flanders, Lieven van Lathem worked for powerful patrons including the dukes of Burgundy, Philip the Good, and Charles the Bold. A member of the painter's guilds in Ghent and Antwerp, van Lathem collaborated with some of the most talented Flemish illuminators of the time, including the Master of Mary of Burgundy and Nicolas Spierinc *.* Influenced by the N
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- about 1471
- Medium
- Tempera colors, gold leaf, gold paint, silver paint, and ink
- Culture
- Flemish
- Department
- Manuscripts
- Institution
- Getty Museum
In this intimate book of hours, the miniature of the Entombment introduces the service of Compline in the Hours of the Passion. Before a deep, receding landscape background, Jesus' followers, including two richly clad gentlemen, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, place his limp body in a sarcophagus. Kneeling, Mary Magdalen reverently leans over to kiss Jesus' hand. On the other side of the sarcophagus, the Virgin Mary and Saint John the Evangelist also mourn. Expanding the meaning of the central scene, the artist included in the border on the lower left the Old Testament episode of Jonah swallowed by the great fish. This episode which was understood as a prefiguration of Jesus' Entombment; just as Christ rose after three days in the tomb, Jonah emerged unharmed after three days in the belly of the fish.
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