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CASPAR DE CRAYER, THE LAMENTATION THE LAMENTATION Gasper de Crayers oeuvre was influenced by three of important aspects of Flemish art in the first half of the 17th century: The Counter-Reformation, the works of Peter Paul Rubens and the patronage of the Spanish court in the Southern Netherlands. Born 1584 in Antwerp, he was taught in Brussels under Raphael Coxie and was recorded there as a master in 1607. He later moved to Ghent, where he died in 1669 following a highly successful and productive artistic career. He became court painter for the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand and took commissions from the Habsburgs, for example portraits, religious works and decorative work, for example for the arrival of the Cardinal-Infante in Ghent. His style mainly orientated towards that of Rubens, and he occasionally worked for the same patrons, such as Afflingen abbey. The figural composition in this Lamentation is dominated by the figure of Christ lain on a burial shroud. Three angels are depicted kneeling over him and lamenting his death. A column closes the composition to the left, lending it stability. Comparison to the Lamentation in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna shows that Gaspar de Crayer has here created a more monumental figural composition - although both the Virgin and three angels surround Christ in the work in Vienna, they are grouped around him more loosely. Two small angels are also shown to the right edge of the work washing the body with a sponge, and a panoramic landscape can be seen to the right. Both these two small angels and the Virgin are lacking in this composition, making the three angels the main protagonists of the scene. They are arranged more closely together and fill almost the entire height of the painting, whereas Christ - in contrast to the work in Vienna - dominates the entire horizontal plane. The monumentality of the figures and their reduced number cause the scene to become compacted and more dramatic. The composition shows the influence of Peter Paul Rubens, whose Italian style monumental altar paintings shaped the Flemish art of the Counter-Reformation in the first half of the 17th century like no other. The heroic conception of Christ - his expression of suffering, pose and flesh-tone - are all inspired by Ruben's depictions of the Passion, Bearing of the Cross, Descent from the Cross and by the Lamentation of Christ in the Kunsthistorisches Museum and the Liechtenstein Museum in Vienna. Hans Vlieghe dates this painting to the 1650s/60s, and thus to the artist's late period in Ghent.