Graflegging 1573

Philips Galle made this engraving of the entombment of Christ some time in the late 16th century. Galle was based in Antwerp, then part of the Spanish Netherlands, a place and time of great religious tension. This image reproduces a scene of piety and mourning, but prints like this also played a role in religious conflict. In the decades around 1600, the Netherlands saw iconoclastic riots in which Calvinists destroyed Catholic religious imagery as idolatrous. The Catholic Church in turn used art to reaffirm its doctrines and inspire devotion. Galle's print, with its clear, affecting depiction of grief, participates in this visual culture war. As art historians, we can look to period writings about the image, the history of the Catholic Church, and the biography of Philips Galle to enrich our understanding of this work. The meaning of this print is rooted in its specific social and institutional context.