Article
Entombment, Joseph Heintz the Elder
The Entombment is a smaller work on a copper support rather than canvas, and forms an instructive complement to the Penitent Magdalen [by the same artist]. Like the Magdalen, the Entombment was recorded in an engraving by Aegidius Sadder, a printmaker of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, whom Heintz also served as court painter. The print is dated 1593, and according to the inscription, was made in Rome. The date falls during Heintz's second Italian trip (1592-95), undertaken in the service of the emperor to acquire works for the imperial collection, make drawings of antiquities, and pursue his own work. The Entombment may date from this period in Heintz's career. This is not the only version of the composition; the popularity of Sadeler's print must account for its use in a large painting produced as late as 1623, on the altar for the Lutheran parish church in Insterburg (formerly East Prussia; now Tschernjachowsk, Russia). Professor Thomas DaCosta Kaufinann, a specialist in Rudolfine art, points out that the small painting on copper is of the highest quality, and that based on comparisons with Heintz's documented works, it is an autograph work.
While the Magdalen shows Heintz's fascination with the sensuous and moving image of the penitent saint by Titian, whose works he admired in Venice during his first Italian trip (1584-87), the Entombment demonstrates the influence of masters who represent a later phase of Italian painting and a Central Italian style. The preciousness, consummate finish, colorism, and detail in this beautifully preserved small painting remind us of works on copper by the reigning master in Rome, Cavaliere d'Arpino (1568- 1640), painter to Pope Clement VIII. Even more striking is the debt to Federico Barocci (1535-1612), particularly his Entombment for Santa Croce in Senigallia (1580-82). We know of Rudolf II's interest in Barocci, and in that painting in particular, as Aegidius Sadder made a print after it. It is perhaps the most celebrated of the altarpieces Barocci produced in the orbit of his patrons, the Delle Rovere family of Urbino. He painted his only secular work, by their permission, as a commission from Rudolf II in 1586-89. Appropriately enough for this successor of Charlemagne, the subject was Aeneas and Anchises Fleeing Troy (lost; autograph copy of 1598 in the Villa Borghese, Rome). Heintz must have seen it when he arrived in Prague as the new court artist in 1591. The Entombment is thus a work made in competition with and emulation of the Italian master, showing similar light and color effects, adapting the subject and its disposition in space, but with "improvements." Following yet another Italian painter, Heintz transforms the Magdalen into a figure from Raphael's Transfiguration (1518-20), his last painting, displayed at his funeral as a summa of his art.
Although a small devotional painting on copper, this Entombment is an ambitious work that rivals and combines the excellent qualities of the leading Italian masters. Meant to appeal to the most discriminating collectors and connoisseurs, it summarizes the late Mannerist aesthetic on the eve of the artistic reform of the Carracci family through their Palazzo Farnese frescoes, which Heintz, returning north in 1595, just missed seeing.
While the Magdalen shows Heintz's fascination with the sensuous and moving image of the penitent saint by Titian, whose works he admired in Venice during his first Italian trip (1584-87), the Entombment demonstrates the influence of masters who represent a later phase of Italian painting and a Central Italian style. The preciousness, consummate finish, colorism, and detail in this beautifully preserved small painting remind us of works on copper by the reigning master in Rome, Cavaliere d'Arpino (1568- 1640), painter to Pope Clement VIII. Even more striking is the debt to Federico Barocci (1535-1612), particularly his Entombment for Santa Croce in Senigallia (1580-82). We know of Rudolf II's interest in Barocci, and in that painting in particular, as Aegidius Sadder made a print after it. It is perhaps the most celebrated of the altarpieces Barocci produced in the orbit of his patrons, the Delle Rovere family of Urbino. He painted his only secular work, by their permission, as a commission from Rudolf II in 1586-89. Appropriately enough for this successor of Charlemagne, the subject was Aeneas and Anchises Fleeing Troy (lost; autograph copy of 1598 in the Villa Borghese, Rome). Heintz must have seen it when he arrived in Prague as the new court artist in 1591. The Entombment is thus a work made in competition with and emulation of the Italian master, showing similar light and color effects, adapting the subject and its disposition in space, but with "improvements." Following yet another Italian painter, Heintz transforms the Magdalen into a figure from Raphael's Transfiguration (1518-20), his last painting, displayed at his funeral as a summa of his art.
Although a small devotional painting on copper, this Entombment is an ambitious work that rivals and combines the excellent qualities of the leading Italian masters. Meant to appeal to the most discriminating collectors and connoisseurs, it summarizes the late Mannerist aesthetic on the eve of the artistic reform of the Carracci family through their Palazzo Farnese frescoes, which Heintz, returning north in 1595, just missed seeing.
