How you can use this image
This image can be used for non-commercial research or private study purposes, and other UK exceptions to copyright permitted to users based in the United Kingdom under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as amended and revised. Any other type of use will need to be cleared with the rights holder(s).
Review the copyright credit lines that are located underneath the image, as these indicate who manages the copyright (©) within the artwork, and the photographic rights within the image.
The collection that owns the artwork may have more information on their own website about permitted uses and image licensing options.
Review our guidance pages which explain how you can reuse images, how to credit an image and how to find images in the public domain or with a Creative Commons licence available.
Buy a print or image licence
You can purchase this reproduction
If you have any products in your basket we recommend that you complete your purchase from Art UK before you leave our site to avoid losing your purchases.
Notes
Add or edit a note on this artwork that only you can see. You can find notes again by going to the ‘Notes’ section of your account.
This large, atmospheric painting most likely depicts a moment from Christ’s trial before the Sanhedrin (a Jewish judicial body). The composition is symmetrically balanced around the lit candle on the central table: the shimmering flame illuminates the faces of Christ and the man sat facing him, probably the priest Caiaphas, but not much else. The picture hints at why, when he worked in Rome between 1610 and 1620, Honthorst’s nickname was Gherardo della Notte (Gherardo of the night). Although it is shaped like an altarpiece, the picture was likely painted to be housed in the palace of Marchese Vincenzo Giustianiani, Gerrit van Honthorst’s important patron. Giustiniani owned another picture of the same subject painted after 1570 by the Genoese master Luca Cambiaso.
Title
Christ before the High Priest
Date
about 1617
Medium
Oil on canvas
Measurements
H 272 x W 183 cm
Accession number
NG3679
Acquisition method
Bought, 1922
Work type
Painting
The National Gallery, London
Trafalgar Square, London, Greater London WC2N 5DN England
-
Sir Dudley Carlton (c.1600–1650) English Heritage, Audley End House -
A Young Shepherdess Holding Pigeons in a Nest English Heritage, Audley End House -
Jacob de Witt (1589–1674) Dulwich Picture Gallery -
Anna van den Corput Dulwich Picture Gallery -
Princess Henrietta Maria (1626–1651), Princess Palatine, Princess of Siebenbürgen, Transylvania National Trust, Ashdown House -
Edward, Prince Palatine (1624–1663), When a Boy, as an Angel Weston Park -
A Bacchic Young Man Squeezing Grapes into a Cup (An Allegory of Taste?) National Trust, Hatchlands - 60 more
