Hand-painted in oil
About this Artwork
The episode the calendar hides
The title joins two events. The Descent into Limbo is what the tradition places on the Saturday, between the burial and the morning: Christ enters the realm of the dead and brings out those who died before him. The Resurrection follows on the Sunday. Neither is described as an action in the gospels — the tomb is found empty, and the descent is drawn from a line in the first letter of Peter and from later texts — so painting had unusual freedom with both.
Where it falls in the sequence
In the gap. Between the Entombment and the appearances to the Magdalene and to the disciples there is a day the narrative leaves silent, and this subject fills it. In this catalogue it is nearly unique: two titles name Limbo and one names a Descent, against twenty-five Lamentations. The mourning was painted constantly and the day after it almost never.
The record
The catalogue gives Bartolome Bermejo, 1480, and the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (MNAC), Barcelona, Spain. It measures 69 x 90 cm, horizontal and small — the format of a predella or a panel from a larger structure, though the record does not say which. No style is entered; the artist is recorded as Spanish. The measured palette reads as ochre and yellow.
Sources
3 references- Bermejo, Bartolomé — Getty ULAN
Spanish painter, ca.1436-ca.1498
- Bartolomé Bermejo — Wikipedia
Bartolomé Bermejo (c. 1440 – c.1501) was a Spanish painter who adopted Flemish painting techniques and conventions and so is considered as an artist of the Hispano-Flemish style. Born in Cordoba, he is known for his work in the Crown of Ara
- Bartolomé Bermejo - Christ's Descent Into Limbo - c. 1474-1477 - 01 (detail) — Wikimedia Commons
High-resolution image of the work, hosted on Wikimedia Commons.
