Description: Graphite, pen and brown ink, grey wash, 142 x 116 mm. No watermark. Chain lines: 25 mm. The framing lines are part of the drawing. Measurements along the left side, 4 Voet Hoogh, and at the bottom left, on a glued-on piece of paper, 3 V.3 d. breet, in pen and brown ink. Inscribed at the bottom, Rhimbrand. Cabinet de Crozat, and numbered in the lower right corner, 77 (struck out), 30 and 1847 (Sparre), all in pen and brown ink. Mark of the Royal Collection (Lugt 1638).

The entombment (Luke 23: 53) is seen from inside the tomb, the opening framing the scene, which is arranged on three levels. The body of Christ, followed by the mourners, is being carried inside, where there is an open sarcophagus near the entrance. Behind, on a higher plateau, are the empty bier and some people left behind. Above them rises the cliff of Golgotha with the crosses, and there too, in the distance, some figures seem to be looking down. In the foreground, a light wash separates the figures. The figure in front of the dead body is darker (numerous pentimenti) and contrasts with the body and the man holding its shoulders. 

The measurements indicate that this is a drawing for a painting. An oblique line on the right with the measurements marked seems to indicate the calculated angle of vision from below, but this would be a fairly small painting, only four feet high, and the effect of foreshortening seen at such an angle would not be very noticeable unless it was very high up.

Early on considered a school work, it was first attributed by Bjurström in 1967, who compared it to a series of drawings of Joseph and his brothers in the Louvre. The present drawing has certain features in common with Rembrandt’s Entombment in Munich. At the time, Eeckhout is supposed to have been Rembrandt’s pupil. However, the drawing is clearly the work of a mature master. Sumowski dates it to c. 1661–65. [Magnusson, Dutch Drawings no. 143]

Kristi kropp bärs till graven