Beskrivning: En pojke med slutna ögon ligger på ett guldskimrande tygstycke med en tunn slöja över sig. Vid första anblicken ser det ut som om barnet sover – kinder och läppar är fortfarande röda.  Men från andra liknande målningar vet vi att detta är en typ av minnesbilder av nära anhöriga som just gått bort. Den knubbiga kroppen samspelar med tygets och slöjans veck och gossens blekhet kontrasterar mot den svarta bakgrunden.

Description: 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.

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