The Resurrection

Bartholomeus Breenbergh · c. 1635

Medium

Oil on panel

Original size

35.5 × 20.7 cm (14 × 8 1/8 in.); Framed: 50.8 × 36.4 × 6.4 cm (20 × 14 3/8 × 2 1/2 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Baroque

The Resurrection captures a moment of divine rupture — soldiers thrown back in shock, angels in luminous white, and Christ rising above the sealed tomb with quiet authority. Bartholomeus Breenbergh trained in Amsterdam before spending formative years in Rome, where he absorbed the warm Italian light and classical landscape tradition that would shape his entire career. This panel shows that influence directly: the rocky terrain, the dramatic chiaroscuro, and the precise arrangement of figures reveal a painter equally at home in the Italian Baroque and the understated naturalism of the Dutch Golden Age. His figures are small in scale but emotionally exact, which is characteristic of how he handled biblical narrative throughout his career. Breenbergh was a member of the Bentvueghels, a close-knit fraternal society of northern European painters working in Rome, and that community's shared interest in landscape, light, and antiquity is visible in nearly everything he painted. The hand-painted oil reproduction honours every layer of Breenbergh's technique — the softly modelled drapery, the luminous sky, the careful recession into distance — giving you an intimate encounter with a quietly remarkable work that rarely receives the attention it deserves.