And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand: and they bowed the knee before him, and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews! Matthew 27:29

This signed work by Hendrick van Steenwyck the Younger combines a church-like interior with a scene from Christ’s passion, where soldiers mock Christ as “King of the Jews.” The episode appears in three of the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) with slight variations in the accounts.

The artist has created a dramatic scene, with the viewer thrust into the middle of the action as three Roman soldiers fashion and attach Christ’s crown of thorns. Christ sits with his eyes closed, hands and feet bound, showing no sign of his pain. He is made to wear a mock royal robe, as another solider kneels before him holding a candle that illuminates Christ’s body and face. Elsewhere two more soldiers stand guard, while still others (including what appears to be a young boy) enter the chamber to join in tormenting Christ. In the back of the building two small figures are watching from afar, and seem to be heading toward the action.

Our painting is set in an elaborate, vaulted interior. Here the artist is playing with the idea of the church: in a literal sense, such a space of course did not exist at the time of Christ’s passion; but in a larger sense every church is a monument to Christ’s divinity and his suffering, making the scenery spiritually appropriate.

Hendrick van Steenwyck the Younger was active in the first half of the 17th Century, and a renowned painter of interior church scenes. In the early 1630s van Steenwyck’s contemporary Anthony van Dyck (1599 – 1642) drew a his portrait, now in the collection of the Städel Museum in Frankfurt. Today London’s National Gallery holds five of van Steenwyck’s paintings.

Provenance: European Private Collection