The Lamentation of Christ

The Knights of Saint John in Haarlem, a religious order of knights, had a huge folding altarpiece over the high altar of their church, painted by Geertgen in the years after 1484. Almost all of it was destroyed when Spanish troops besieged the rebel city in 1572 and 1573. One wing survived and was taken for safety to Utrecht. This is its inner face, the side seen when the altar stood open, with Christ's body laid out at the foot of the cross among the mourners.

After that the wing travelled. The order kept it until 1625 and the city of Haarlem until 1628, and in 1636 the States General, the government of the Dutch Republic, presented it to Charles I of England. From 1638 it belonged to James Hamilton, one of the king's leading courtiers. The king and Hamilton were both executed in 1649, their pictures were sold, and the wing passed to Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, whose collection became the core of this gallery. Its outer face, sawn away from this one, now hangs as a painting of its own.