Panel of an Altarpiece with the Circumcision (inner wing) and the Resurrection (outer wing)

Entry

This wing and another one (SK-A-1307) with scenes from the life of Christ originally belonged to a large altarpiece. The fronts of both wings show events from Christ’s youth. This one has The Circumcision (Luke 2:21), with Jesus being held by Joseph and Mary as he is circumcised by a priest.³ This scene, in which Christ’s blood flows for the first time, is a prefiguration of the Passion.⁴ The other wing (SK-A-1307) shows Jesus Disputing with the Doctors in the Temple (Luke 2:41-52) at the moment when he is rediscovered by his parents after they had lost him when leaving Jerusalem.⁵ Both scenes are set in contemporary church interiors framed by a painted, vaulted stone entrance. Each of these framing devices has two painted reliefs in grisaille of Old Testament scenes that foreshadow events in the New Testament. Typological combinations of this kind had their origin in the visual arts in the so-called Biblia paupera, block-books in which the main scenes from the New Testament were associated on the same page with their prefigurations from the Old Testament, often accompanied by pronouncements of the prophets.⁶ The painter of these wings appears to be alluding to these bibles for the poor with his compositional scheme of placing two Old Testament scenes on either side of one from the New Testament.

The grisailles in The Circumcision are of The Sacrifice of Isaac (Genesis 22:1-19) and The Brazen Serpent (Numbers 21:4-9).⁷ Both foreshadow the Crucifixion and accord well with the Circumcision as a prefiguration of the Passion.⁸ The grisailles of The Fall of Man (Genesis 3:1-7) and The Killing of Abel (Genesis 4:3-16) in the other panel represent original sin, from which mankind was redeemed by the coming and death of Christ.⁹ They are probably related to the central scene of Jesus disputing in the Temple by the fact that he is explaining the scriptures to the doctors and telling the story of salvation.¹⁰

The outsides of both wings depict events surrounding the Passion. On the back of The Circumcision is The Resurrection, in which Christ emerges from the tomb holding a cross stave in his left hand.¹¹ Two of the four guards are sleeping, while the others have been blinded by the apparition. Although Christ’s tomb is usually depicted as a sarcophagus in western art, the artist chose instead to depict one hewn out of the rock, possibly inspired by examples by Hans Memling and Gerard David.¹² Christ Appearing to His Mother on the outside of the other wing is also rarely found in Netherlandish painting.¹³ It shows Christ appearing to the Virgin one last time after his return from descending into Limbo, greeting her and showing her his wounds. He is accompanied by two angels, liberated Old Testament patriarchs, and Adam and Eve. Not found in the Bible, this subject was given wider circulation through a description in the Meditationes vitae Christi by the 13th-century Pseudo-Bonaventura.¹⁴ In that account, Christ visited his mother without any companions. The expanded version of the story as depicted in this panel is a type that is first found in art and literature in Spain in the 14th and early 15th century. The description in the Vita Christi by Isabel de Villena, abbess of the Convent of the Holy Trinity in Valencia, which was published in 1497, seven years after her death, appears to have played an important part in spreading the iconography of the subject throughout Europe.¹⁵ Isabel relates how Christ visited his mother in her room followed by a host of figures from Limbo, with the angel Gabriel at their head. Adam and Eve kneel in front of the Virgin, full of joy at the promised redemption.¹⁶ The only other example known in the northern Netherlands that is based on that Spanish source is a diptych by Jan Mostaert, which is now divided between the Rijksmuseum Twenthe in Enschede and the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid.¹⁷

At the top of both outer wings there are fragments of scenes visible with both the naked eye and infrared reflectography which have been overpainted with a thin, slightly transparent layer of green paint.¹⁸ These fragments show that both panels have been shortened considerably at the top. The one with The Resurrection shows the lower bodies of a group of figures moving to the left (fig. a). All are wearing long garments, and the figure second from the left is barefoot. On the right is a figure bending over, possibly a woman. On the other panel there is a complete female figure seen from the back (fig. b.) The jar of ointment in her right hand identifies her as Mary Magdalen. The other figures in the background are only partly visible. Although there are hardly any examples to be found in Netherlandish art, the figure group above The Resurrection could be a depiction of Christ Carried to the Tomb (Luke 23:50-56; John 19:38-42).¹⁹ The presence of Mary Magdalen at the top of the other panel might indicate that this scene was The Holy Women at the Tomb (Matthew 28:1-7; Mark 16:1-8; Luke 24:1-8).²⁰ Both subjects certainly fit within the depicted sequence of events that took place after the Crucifixion.

The precise shape of the complete altarpiece is difficult to reconstruct. The direction in which the figures are facing on the outer wings could indicate that both were the left wings of a polyptych. However, in view of the compositions on the outsides and the position of the overpainted Mary Magdalen relative to the architecture, the wings could originally have been brace-shaped at the top and fitted together when closed. This means that when the altarpiece was opened they were on the outside. The cropped tops of the inner wings could have been filled with architectonic decoration.

Since each scene represents one of the sorrows or joys of the Virgin, it certainly seems that both wings were part of a polyptych with that as its theme.²¹ Although such programmes could include a variety of scenes, it seems likely that there would have been a Crucifixion on the outside of the polyptych. If so, the altarpiece must have had at least one more pair of wings. There are several candidates for the centre panel: a Nativity, an adoration of the Magi or, although less common, an Annunciation - all of them joys of the Virgin.

The size of the original altarpiece and the clearly complex iconography indicate that this must have been a major commission for the artist. In the 19th century it was already being associated with the Master of Alkmaar, the name given to the anonymous painter of the Polyptych with the Seven Works of Charity (SK-A-2815).²² The scenes do indeed have the same naive narrative manner as the Charity panels, as well as the same varied palette, and the style is also closely related. The stiff, rough execution of the wings makes them considerably inferior to that core work of 1504. It is not inconceivable, as Friedländer suggested, that the wings can be regarded as late works painted with the aid of assistants.²³ The dendrochronology seems to confirm a late date, which makes workshop participation more likely. Given our limited knowledge of the artist and of any workshop he may have had, we have cautiously retained the qualification ‘attributed to’.

There has been a great deal of speculation but few convincing findings about the provenance of these wings. At the top of the painted framing element around The Circumcision there is a coat of arms with an abstract orb surrounded by the three letters ‘y i r’ or a numeral and two letters ‘4 i r’. Although it was suggested in the past that this is the house mark of a potential patron, it is also very possible that the device is indeed an orb and refers to Christ as the ‘Salvator mundi’. The catalogue of the Alewijn auction in 1885 states that the wings were from the Convent of St Agatha in Haarlem, but no such convent ever existed. It has been suggested that this was a mistake for the convents of St Agnes or St Ursula, but there is nothing to support that hypothesis.²⁴ Snyder cited an inventory of 1573 of St John’s Monastery in Haarlem in support of his theory that the wings came from the Blinken friary in Heiloo.²⁵ That friary was demolished in 1571, whereupon Commander Philips van Hogesteyn from St John’s bought a number of objects, including altarpieces. However, Van Bueren has convincingly demonstrated that the descriptions in the inventory cited by Snyder do not relate to the wings in the Rijksmuseum.²⁶

(J. Niessen)