Object data
oil on panel
support: height 57.2 cm × width 44.9 cm
thickness 1.3 cm
depth 8.5 cm
Jheronimus Bosch (copy after)
The Adoration of the Magi
c. 1600 - c. 1650
Technical notes
The support consists of two vertically grained oak planks (26 and 19.6 cm), 0.6 cm thick. Small holes, regularly spaced 2.5 cm apart, are visible along the bottom of the panel and down the left side. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1596 and the last sapwood ring in 1605. The panel could have been ready for use by 1607, but a date in or after 1613 is more likely. The white ground was applied up to the edges of the panel. An underdrawing could not be detected with the naked eye nor with infrared reflectography. Broad diagonal brushstrokes were detected with infrared reflectography, however, and probably indicate the presence of an 'imprimatura' layer. The paint layers are smooth and were applied up to the edges of the panel. The figures were reserved, and mordant gilding was used for the haloes of the Virgin and Child, and for the star of Bethlehem.
Scientific examination and reports
- dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 16 June 2000
- condition report: M. van de Laar, RMA, 15 March 2006
Condition
Good. The varnish is severely discoloured.
Provenance
...; collection Adriaan Leonard van Heteren (1724-1800), The Hague, after 1752;1 his third cousin and godson, Adriaan Leonard van Heteren Gevers (1794-1866), Rotterdam, as Jan van Eijck (‘[…] il représente l’adoration des Mages, bois, h. 21½ l. 17 [56 x 44.2 cm.]’);2 from whom, fl. 100,000, to the museum with 136 other paintings en bloc (known as the ‘Kabinet van Heteren Gevers’), by decree of Louis Napoleon (1778-1846), King of Holland, and through the mediation of his father, Dirk Cornelis Gevers (1763-1839), 8 June 18093
Object number: SK-A-124
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Jheronimus Bosch (’s-Hertogenbosch c. 1450 - ’s-Hertogenbosch 1516), copy after
Jheronimus Bosch came from a prodigiously artistic family. His great-grandfather, Thomas van Aken, his grandfather Jan and his father Antonius were all painters. His grandfather left Aachen for Nijmegen and then moved to ’s-Hertogenbosch, where he is first documented in 1427. Four of his sons became painters as well. The youngest, Antonius, married Aleid van der Mynnen, and their three sons, Goessen, Jheronimus and Jan all once again followed their father’s profession.
Bosch is mentioned – usually with just his forename Jheronimus or Jeroen – in a number of documents drawn up in ’s-Hertogenbosch between 1474 and 1516. In the earliest of them, dated 5 April 1474, he acted together with his father and brothers as witnesses for his sister Katherijn. The artist used the toponym Bosch to sign a few of his works ‘Jheronimus Bosch’. He probably trained in his father’s workshop.
Between July 1477 and June 1481, Bosch married Aleid van der Meervenne, who was born into quite a well-to-do family in Oirschot, a village south of ’s-Hertogenbosch. In the city they moved into her house, ‘Inden Salvator’ (In the Saviour), but it is not known precisely when. Bosch became prosperous, thanks to his wife, and began moving in the city’s higher social circles, which included the influential Brotherhood of Our Lady. He became an ordinary member in 1486-87, and was elected a sworn brother the following year, 1487-88. That Jheronimus Bosch was quite well off can be deduced from tax returns. Bosch was probably one of the victims of an outbreak of the plague in ’s-Hertogenbosch in the summer of 1516. He was buried in the churchyard of the city’s St Janskerk. His patrons belonged to the circle of the Burgundian Habsburg Court and the wealthy bourgeoisie in Brabant.
Regrettably, the surviving documents contain little information about Bosch’s activities as an artist. The only documented commission for a painting dates from September 1504, when he was asked to paint a Last Judgement for Philip the Handsome, Duke of Brabant, which indicates that he was a recognised artist. Apart from that, only a few minor commissions are recorded, among others for polychroming an altarpiece and for designing a crucifix.
Opinions on the attribution of the paintings differ considerably. None of the paintings are dated, and their chronology is the subject of much discussion. Until 2010, more than 30 paintings were attributed to Bosch, of which nine are signed ‘Jheronimus Bosch’. Between 2010 and 2015 the Dutch Bosch Research and Conservation Project (BRCP) investigated most of them and concluded that whereas 21 are works made by the master himself, four are from his workshop, seven were executed by followers, and two are either made by his workshop or by a follower.4
Eight of these 21 paintings are triptychs: The Garden of Earthly Delights triptych,5 probably commissioned by Engelbert van Nassau (1451-1504), the two versions of The Haywain,6 The Last Judgement, signed,7 The Last Judgement with Saint James the Apostle and Saint Bavo (or Saint Hippolyte),8 The Temptation of St Antony, signed,9 Hermits Saints Triptych Sts Jerome, Antony and Giles, signed,10 The Adoration of the Magi,11 and The Martyrdom of St Wilgefortis, signed ‘Julia’ (?).12 Three individual panels are also signed: St John on Patmos,13 St Christopher,14 and Tabletop of the Seven Deadly Sins.15
Although most specialists now agree that other members of the workshop participated in the execution of many of Bosch’s works, Koreny attributed a number of major works, such as The Haywain triptych, the Lissabon triptych and The Last Judgement in Bruges, to his pupils.16 To complicate matters, several works are known only through copies. Jheronimus Bosch was hugely popular in the second half of the 16th century, and this gave rise to the large number of copies and pastiches executed long after his death that have survived. The latter group (see SK-A-3113, SK-A-1601, SK-A-3240, SK-A-1673, SK-A-4131) consists of new inventions in Bosch’s style using elements or quotations from his paintings.
References
Van Mander 1604, fols. 216v-17r; Cohen in Thieme/Becker IV, 1910, pp. 386-90; Friedländer V, 1927, pp. 70-106; De Tolnay 1937, pp. 75-82; Baldass 1943, pp. 5-82; De Tolnay 1965, pp. 407-08; Gerlach 1967; ENP V, 1969, pp. 45-58; Marijnissen 1987, pp. 11-14; Miedema III, 1996, pp. 48-58; Gibson in Saur XIII, 1996, pp. 160-62; Vandenbroeck in Turner 1996, IV, pp. 445-54; Van Dijck 2001, pp. 139-205; Vink 2001; Silver 2006, pp. 127-59; Huys Janssen 2007; Koreny 2012, pp. 86-113; ’s-Hertogenbosch 2016, pp. 11-12; Schwartz 2016, pp. 36-52; Ilsink et al. 2016, pp. 13-32; Madrid 2016, pp. 17-41; BoschDoc
J. Bogers, 2010
Updated by J.P. Filedt Kok, 2016
Entry
This is a late and greatly reduced copy after the centre panel of Bosch’s Adoration of the Magi triptych in Madrid (fig. a).17 The triptych must have made a great impression on Bosch’s followers, for there are numerous extant copies.18 Like the Amsterdam panel, many of them have no wings (the versions in Berlin and Philadelphia, among others), and they also lack the arched top with the landscape.19 Unverfehrt assumed that, with the exception of the Berlin version, these rectangular copies were made in the first half of the 16th century.20 Dendrochronology has shown, in any case, that the Amsterdam version was probably not painted until the first decade of the 17th century. The holes at regular intervals along the bottom and left side of the panel could indicate the use of a grid to facilitate copying.
This copy was bought in 1809 as a work by Jan van Eyck.21 According to the 1809 catalogue, the museum had two more paintings by the ‘founders of the old Dutch school of painting, Hubert and Jan van Eyck’, those being The Holy Kinship (now Geertgen tot Sint Jans, SK-A-500) and The Madonna and Child with Sts Catherine, Cecilia, Barbara and Ursula (now Master of the Virgo inter Virgines, SK-A-501).22 Those attributions remained unchanged until 1858, but in P.L. Dubourcq’s catalogue of that year two of them were no longer regarded as Van Eycks. The Adoration of the Magi, on the other hand, retained its attribution until 1864, when it was reassigned to Jan Gossaert until Bredius recognised it as a copy after Bosch in 1885.23
J. Bogers, 2010
Literature updated by J.P. Filedt Kok, 2016
Literature
Lafond 1914, p. 38; Friedländer V, 1927, p. 144, no. 68b; ENP V, 1969, p. 82, no. 68b; Unverfehrt 1980, p. 262, no. 49a.a; De Vrij 2012, pp. 340-41, no. B.10.27
Collection catalogues
1809, p. 22, no. 89 (as Jan van Eyck); 1843, p. 19, no. 90 (as Jan van Eyck; ‘in good condition’); 1853, p. 10, no. 80 (fl. 4,500); 1858, p. 38, no. 83 (as Hubert and Jan van Eyck); 1880, pp. 404-05, no. 474 (as Jan Gossaert); 1887, p. 20, no. 158; 1903, p. 59, no. 589; 1976, p. 136, no. A 124
Citation
J. Bogers, 2010, 'copy after Jheronimus Bosch, The Adoration of the Magi, c. 1600 - c. 1650', in J.P. Filedt Kok (ed.), Early Netherlandish Paintings, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.6185
(accessed 10 November 2024 06:22:36).