Description in Flemish paintings C. 1600-C. 1800 III, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2010, cat.no. 94:

Technical notes: The painting’s support, a single
piece of medium-weight, plain weave fabric, has been
lined. The original tacking edges have been trimmed,
especially at the top and bottom, and the painting
mounted on a non-original strainer at the tacking edges
of the lining canvas. The paint surface has been slightly
extended, on the left and the right, by partially folding
and incorporating the original (painted) tacking edges
over the new wider strainer. Faint cusping is visible along
the top and bottom edges.

The original fabric support was prepared with a thick
white ground, which probably contains chalk, followed
by a cream-coloured layer, completely covering the
underlying texture of the support.

Paint is applied fairly thinly, in one or two opaque and
semi-transparent layers, with low impastos in the white
and yellow lights and minimal brushmarking overall.
Limited use of translucent glazes can be noticed in the
draperies, in the red mantles of Christ, one of the Apostles
on the right, and a male figure on the left. Christ’s
blue robe was underpainted in red, as was the mauve
skirt of the female figure bending forward on the left.
Very few pentimenti during the painting process are now
visible to the naked eye: Christ’s left hand resting on the
donkey’s back was initially painted slightly higher up; the
position of the fingers of the woman wearing green and
the old man wearing blue on the left-hand side were
shifted slightly.

The painting is generally in excellent condition, especially
the figures and the landscape, with only moderate
abrasion overall and with much of the original freshness
and vibrancy of the colours preserved. The paint surface
has been partially cleaned (in the frame?), leaving wide
bands of discoloured old varnish along the top, left and
right edges. Abrasion is moderate overall. Coarse
retouching occurs at the upper left corner, and along the
left and right edges; discoloured retouches visible
throughout the sky; only scattered small retouches in the
figures. The painting underwent conservation treatment
in 1840, 1861, 1929 and 1987.

Provenance: Lovisa Ulrika 1760, no. 282; KM 1795,
no. 171; KM 1804, no. 105; KM 1816, no. 534.

Bibliography: NM Cat. 1867, p. 32; Sander I, p. 104;
Göthe 1887, pp. 106–107; Göthe 1893, pp. 130–131;
Granberg 1911–1913, I, p. 87; Granberg 1929–1931, p.
167; NM Cat. 1958, p. 92; NM Cat. 1990, p. 169.

Christ is seated on a donkey in the foreground on the
right and blesses the multitude as he rides towards
Jerusalem (Matt. 21:5–10). Just in front of the donkey
and under its front hoofs, a woman spreads a piece of
drapery, with a child next to her holding up a palm
branch; a man in the foreground, on the left, prepares
to unroll more, being helped by a child to remove his
cloak for the purpose. A large crowd, holding palm
branches, walks behind the Saviour. The gates of the
Holy City can be seen in the background, on the left, a
crowd of women and men emerging from its gates,
clamouring to greet their Saviour. The theme of
“Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem” has long been associated
with the triumph over death.

The painting is somewhat atypical of Willem van
Herp’s oeuvre and especially of his devotional subjects,
in that it is a fairly large painting on a canvas support
rather than the usual cabinet-sized picture on copper,
as were the majority of those of his works intended for
export to Spain and elsewhere. The plentiful surviving
work by Van Herp consists to a large extent of copies
and pastiches after Peter Paul Rubens and other leading
history painters of his time. In the present painting
the stance and profile face of Christ were, thus, clearly
modelled after the figure of the Saviour in Rubens’
Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem of c. 1631/1632 in Dijon
(Musée des Beaux-Arts), a predella scene – possibly
executed with the participation of Erasmus Quellinus
II – from the altarpiece for the Confraternity of the
Holy Sacrament in the Church of St.-Rombouts in
Mechelen.1 Several of the male heads in the crowd
walking behind Christ, especially the bearded elderly
men, also resemble those seen in this and other scenes
from Rubens’ Mechelen altarpiece,2 while the woman
with raised arms in the group outside the gates of
Jerusalem, on the left, seems to have been based on
similar figures in other works by Rubens, such as the
(lost) Reconciliation of the Romans and Sabines of 1639,
known through a surviving oil sketch and copies.3 Few
of Van Herp’s works are dated, making it difficult to
trace his stylistic development, or to propose a date for
this painting. However, the artist’s style is quite distinctive,
his hand being immediately recognizable in
the expressive, almost mannered, gracefully attenuated
figures. The paint is loosely applied and as usual the
figures’ brilliantly coloured garments are animated by
numerous highlights and shadows. Vlieghe suggested
that the almost exaggerated expressiveness of Van
Herp’s figures should perhaps be regarded as his own
way of coming to terms with the increasing need for
more emotional depictions of religious and mythological
subjects.4
CF
1 Oil on wood, 79 x 82 cm, Dijon, Musée des Beaux-Arts, inv. no. 65; for
which see Judson 2000, pp. 48–49, 55–56 no. 7, fig. 17. Burchard (1963)
suggested that the Dijon predellas were possibly painted by Rubens and
retouched by Erasmus Quellinus II, as cited by Judson (pp. 56, 57).
2 For example, the central scene of The Institution of the Eucharist in Milan,
Pinacoteca di Brera, or the second predella panel representing Christ
Washing the Disciples’ Feet in Dijon, Musée des Beaux-Arts; see Judson (as
above), pp. 48–52 no. 6, and 56–57 no. 8, figs. 11, 18.
3 See McGrath 1997, pp. 217–220 no. 43 (a painted copy belonging to the
Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, on loan to the University of
Barcelona, inv. no. N.Adq. T.1034), and figs. 140, 142. For the Antwerp
oil sketch (Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas, Huis Osterrieth), see Held
1980, I, pp. 379–382 no. 284, II, fig. 284 (“c.1634–1636”).
4 See Van Puyvelde 1959; Díaz Padrón 1977 and 1978, cited by Vlieghe
1998, p. 114.[End]