A Dead Child
Artist/Maker
DatesMade: Made 1600s
Material / Technique
Dimensionsh x w: Mått 64 x 79 cm h x w x d: Ram 72 x 89 x 5 cm
Inventory numberNM 7049
AcqusitionPurchase 2008 Axel and Nora Lundgren Fund
Other titlesTitle (sv): Ett dött barn Title (en): A Dead Child
DescriptionDescription: Covered by a thin veil, a boy with eyes closed lies on a gleaming golden cloth. At first glance it looks like the child is sleeping—the cheeks and lips are still rosy. But from other similar paintings we know that this is a type of memorial painting of close relatives that have just died. The stubby body interacts with the folds of the veil and the cloth, and the pallor of the boy contrasts with the black background. [slut] Description in Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, vol 15, 2008 A Dead Child NM 7049 (See article p. 17) [slut] Catalogue raisonné: Description in Flemish paintings C. 1600-C. 1800 III, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2010, cat.no. 238: Technical notes: The support consists of a single piece of densely and evenly woven (medium) plain weave linen. It was cut unevenly along the top, right and lower edges to fit the current non-original strainer. On the left edge the painting is folded over the edge by about 1 cm. The painting was previously mounted on a smaller strainer and traces of the folded edge with cracks and filled holes in the paint layers can be found at the bottom and top and on the right about 1 cm in from the outer edge. Cusping is faintly visible along the left edge. The painting has been glue-lined. The fabric was prepared with a brownish-orange evenly applied ground covered by a thin grey, cool imprimatura. The preparation covers the structure of the canvas. The paint layers for the foreground and background have been applied thinly (monochrome). Opaque and transparent paint layers in the rendering of the child, the drapery and the shroud. A reserve was prepared in the foreground and background for the child and the drapery. The stone slab on which the child is lying was painted afterwards. The flesh tones are finely modulated and executed on cool, grey underpainting in a shade darker than the imprimatura and thus forms part of the shadows. The drapery is rendered in shades of yellow from dark to light. A row of dense pinholes through the canvas along the white border of the shroud begins on the left at the same height as the foot and ends at the level of the elbow. These were probably made after the paint layer had dried (crush marks can be seen in the layer). Some nonoriginal material has probably been placed along the border as decoration. The painting underwent conservation treatment in 2009. Provenance: Österby coll. 1830, no. 30 (as Guido Reni), priv. coll.; Purchased from Bukowski Auctions spring 2008, cat. no. 548, lot 441 (as unknown Flemish painter). Bibliography: Tamm 2008, p. 144. Exhibited: Österby 1981, no. 10. This painting depicts a naked young boy lying with his eyes shut and covered only by a thin transparent shroud. The boy is lying on a yellow quilt placed on a slab of stone or a stone table. The transparent shroud covers the child’s body and its edges are decorated with a ribbon, in which some of the impasto areas have been preserved, of golden yellow. One hand lies beneath his head and the other on the child’s round stomach. The flesh tones are pale and partly painted in a greyish tone. The emphasis in the painting is on the intensity of the boy’s slumber and repose, its expression enhanced by the cover of the shroud. The painting portrays a dead child and was once part of the Österby collection, where it can be traced back with certainty to the 1830s1 when an inventory of the works in the collection was made by Nils Fredrik Sander and Hendryk Bukowski in 1876 lists it as no. 30 and its companion piece as no. 23.2 The painting is described as “Naked boy, sleeping” and its companion piece (in private ownership) as “Naked boy, weeping”. Both works were attributed to Guido Reni but can on stylistic and technical grounds be attributed instead to an unknown Flemish artist. The hanging plans for the Österby collection, which are still preserved in the manor house, show that in the 1830s the two paintings were displayed symmetrically next to each other between two windows in a drawing room looking out over the gardens and park. Both painting match each other in format and motif: the one in the Nationalmuseum’s collection is executed in warm, yellowish tones and the one in private ownership, also a depiction of a dead child, is painted in cooler, blue values. Technical examination has shown that the original paintwork in the face and the child’s body has been retained in the work in the Nationalmuseum but that there are a number of retouches in the neutrally painted background. The work has been lined with the result that a number of areas that were once in impasto have been flattened out. KS 1 For a description of portraits of dead children see the exhibition catalogue Naar het lijk. Het Nederlandse doodportret 1500-heden, Rotterdam 1998 and also Karin Sidén, “Porträtt av döda barn. Minnesbilder och sorgeuttryck.”, Den ideala barndomen. Studier i det stormaktstida barnporträttets ikonografi och funktion, Uppsala 2001, pp. 209–268 as well as K. Sidén, “The Ideal Childhood. Portraits of Children in 17th Century Sweden”, Baroque Dreams. Art and Vision in Sweden in the Era of Greatness, Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Figura 31, Stockholm 2003, pp. 60–98. 2 Tamm 2008, p. 144 [End] Covered by a thin veil, a boy with eyes closed lies on a gleaming golden cloth. At first glance it looks like the child is sleeping—the cheeks and lips are still rosy. But from other similar paintings we know that this is a type of memorial painting of close relatives that have just died. The stubby body interacts with the folds of the veil and the cloth, and the pallor of the boy contrasts with the black background.
Collection
TechniquePainting
Object category
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