Object data
oil on panel
support: height 89.8 cm × width 30.8 cm
sight size: height 88.2 cm × width 29.2 cm
frame: height 98 cm × width 39 cm
Gerard David
Outer left wing of a triptych with a view in a forest
c. 1505 - c. 1515
Technical notes
The original support is a single vertically grained oak plank, 0.1-0.2 cm thick. It was the exterior of the left wing of a triptych, which was separated from the interior sometime between 1930 and 1932 and transferred onto a thick oak panel consisting of two vertical planks. Two cross-bars are attached to the back. The unpainted edges (0.8-1.0 cm) and the presence of a barbe indicate that the panel was painted when it was in the frame (painted surface: 88.3 x 28.7 cm). The whitish ground is visible through the paint layers and along the edges. A sketchy underdrawing indicated the trees and branches. Faint traces of it appear in the infrared reflectogram assembly. Sections of the sky were then painted broadly, leaving spaces in reserve where the foliage would be painted in greater detail. At a later stage in the painting process the height of the large tree at top left was increased, extending over the area that had already been brushed in for the sky, as is apparent in the X-ray. The leafy branches in the background were quickly brushed in with broad strokes, using a very dark green. A mixed green was used for the boughs closer to the viewer, and finally short dabs of lead-tin yellow, impasted paint for the leaves on the branches closest to the viewer and in full light.
Scientific examination and reports
- X-radiography: Mauritshuis, no. 843, 1985
- condition report: W. de Ridder, RMA, 24 October 2005
Literature scientific examination and reports
Bruijnen in The Hague 1997, p. 17; Ainsworth 1998, pp. 237-45
Condition
Poor. The paint layer is badly abraded in the building, the sky and the ass. There is raised paint along the grain, which is now stable. The green glazes have become brown, and the varnish has yellowed slightly.
Conservation
- conservator unknown, 1930 - 1932: Panels sawn in two; restored (New York)
- J.J. Susijn, 1985 - 1987: complete restoration
- Marvelde (Frans Hals Museum) , M. te, February 1997: discoloured retouchings reworked
Provenance
…; collection Navarrese family, Spain, as Hans Memling (the intact triptych);1 by descent to Ramon F. Urrutia, Madrid, 1920 (the intact triptych);2 …; from the dealer Duveen Brothers, Paris and New York, to Jules S. Bache, New York, 1928 (the intact triptych);3 the detached outer wings returned to the dealers Duveen Brothers, Paris and New York, after 1930;4 from whom, fl. 5,000, to the museum, as a gift from the Fotocommissie, 1932;5 on loan to the Mauritshuis, The Hague, since 1948
Object number: SK-A-3134
Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Commissie voor Fotoverkoop and the State of the Netherlands
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Gerard David (Oudewater c. 1460 - Bruges 1523)
Gerard David’s tombstone in the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk in Bruges states that he was born around 1460 in Oudewater near Gouda. It is assumed on stylistic grounds that he trained in the northern province of Holland, perhaps in Haarlem, but there is no documentary evidence to support this. On 14 January 1484 he enrolled in the Bruges guild of image-makers and saddlers, to which panel painters also belonged. He was elected second warden of the guild in 1488, then first warden (1495, 1499) and dean (1501). From 1494 to 1523 he lived in a house in Sint Jorisstraat, which he shared with Antheunis Huyghe, who was probably his assistant. At some date between 1497 and 1509 he married Cornelia Cnoop, the daughter of the well-known goldsmith Jacob Cnoop the Younger. In 1507-08 he joined the prestigious Brotherhood of Our Lady of the Dry Tree, whose members included nobles and prosperous burghers. He enrolled in the Antwerp painters’ guild in 1515 but continued to live in Bruges. He and his live-in assistant Ambrosius Benson became embroiled in a lawsuit in 1519-20, and he was actually imprisoned for a while in 1520 for refusing to return to Benson two packing cases containing drawn designs by Adriaen Isenbrandt and Aelbrecht Cornelis. Other documents show that he was also involved in legal disputes at the end of his life. He died on 13 August 1523.
Some 60 works are attributed to Gerard David, almost all of them religious scenes, chiefly individual panels with popular subjects like the adoration of the Magi, the Passion or the Virgin, but there are also triptychs and polyptychs. He left only two known autonomous portraits.6 Although none of his works is signed, a few are documented, among them the two monumental scenes making up The Judgement of Cambyses, his earliest dated paintings, for which he received payment from the Bruges city authorities in 1491 and 1498.7 Jan de Trompes commissioned the Triptych with the Baptism of Christ from him before 1502,8 and he also worked for foreign patrons. He painted the Cervara Altarpiece in 1506 for Vincenzo Sauli for the abbey church of San Girolamodella Cervara near Genoa.9 In 1509 he donated his last dated work, the Virgo inter virgines now in Rouen, to the Carmelite convent of Sion, not far from his workshop. He and his wife are depicted on the left and right as the donors.10
David’s earliest works, among them the centre panel of a Nativity Altarpiece,11 were mainly influenced by painters from Haarlem like Albrecht Ouwater and Geertgen tot Sint Jans. After his arrival in Bruges in 1484 he was increasingly inspired by his southern Netherlandish predecessors, such as Jan van Eyck and Hugo van der Goes, and by his fellow citizen Hans Memling. He also maintained close ties with the miniaturists of Bruges, especially Simon Bening, and there is evidence that they exchanged designs with compositions and figures. This, together with the fact that his widow paid the miniaturists’ guild a sum of money for funeral expenses after his death makes it likely that he also worked as a miniaturist.
References
Van Mander 1604, fol. 205r; Weale 1895; Von Bodenhausen 1905; Winkler in Thieme/Becker VIII, 1913, pp. 452-53; Friedländer VI, 1928, pp. 71-113; ENP VI, 1971, pp. 77-98; Van Miegroet 1989; Miedema II, 1995, pp. 249-50; De Vos in Turner 1996, VIII, pp. 550-54; Ainsworth 1998; Beaujean in Saur XXIII, 2000, pp. 428-31
(Vanessa Hoogland)
Entry
This panel and its companion, SK-A-3135 or fig. b, show two parts of a single landscape devoid of human figures. The left panel (SK-A-3134) has a view of a deserted building in a forest, with a reclining ass and a great tit on a bush in the foreground, while an ox and an ass wade in a shallow pool on the right panel. They are the outer wings of a triptych, the centre panel of which, a Nativity, and the inner wings with donors and saints are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (fig. a). The outer and inner wings were separated between 1930 and 1932, probably because it was thought at the time that the View in a Forest was not autograph.12
The View in a Forest is often said to be the first autonomous Netherlandish landscape painting, but in fact it is part of a larger work of art with a religious subject. Generations of art historians have puzzled over the meaning of the scene. Friedländer, for example, suggested that the landscape originally included the figures of Adam and Eve but that they had been overpainted.13 However, not a trace of human figures has been found on the panels, even after the most recent conservation treatment.14 Cleven pointed out that certain elements, such as the forest and the ass, might allude to the rest on the flight into Egypt, which would certainly tie in with the scene on the centre panel, for the flight follows the birth of Christ.15 Härting believed that the iconography of the entire triptych is based on chapter 39 of the book of Job, which details God’s dominion over the animal kingdom. According to this theory, the altarpiece illustrates the following questions: ‘Who hath sent out the wild ass free? or who hath loosed the bands of the wild ass?’ (Job 39:5), and ‘Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib?’ (Job 39:9).16 The ox and the ass are out in the wilderness in the View in a Forest, and it is not yet clear whom they are serving, but the questions are answered when the wings are opened to reveal the centre panel, where both are kneeling before the Christ Child and recognise God’s dominion alone.17 Buijsen draws attention to parallels between the View in a Forest and Isaiah 32:12-20, in which there is mention of ‘a forest’ and ‘the ox and the ass’. Just as this prophecy foretells the coming of Christ after a period of great adversity, so the View in a Forest on the outer wings of the triptych is a harbinger of The Nativity on the centre panel.18 The various interpretations are based on the plausible assumption that the View in a Forest has to be interpreted in relation to and as an introduction to the Nativity, but its precise connotation is still uncertain.
As far as is known there is no other triptych with a similar scene on the outer wings. It may have been requested by the patrons, who are so far unidentified. They selected an artist who was very skilled in depicting nature. By painting the small details like the leaves on the trees very painstakingly and true to life David created a realistic and convincing scene. The types of tree can actually be identified: from left to right an oak, a white walnut and a beech. Many of the aquatic plants around the pool are also recognisable, such as the yellow iris and the plantain.19
The doubts about the authorship of the View in a Forest raised in the 1920s were due to the fact that the building had been badly overpainted.20 That overpaint was removed during conservation carried out before the panels were sold to the museum in 1932 and replaced with a new one which integrated the building more convincingly in the scene. Since then there has been no doubt about the attribution to Gerard David. Although only a few original traces of the house survive, it could be reconstructed with the aid of a Rest on the Flight into Egypt of c. 1525 attributed to Ambrosius Benson in Genoa.21 That painting has a similar landscape, and the result of X-ray examination suggests that both works derive from a common model.22
It is agreed that the Amsterdam panels date from later in David’s career. Landscape was already playing an important part in his altarpiece with The Baptism of Christ, which is dated 1502-08.23 View in a Forest is regarded as a milestone in David’s rendering of landscape, and this, together with the well-articulated spatial effect of the scenes on the inside of the triptych, has led to the panels being dated c. 1505-15.24
(Vanessa Hoogland)
Literature
Mayer 1920 (as not by Gerard David); Friedländer VI, 1928, p. 143, no. 160; Friedländer XIV, 1937, p. 106, no. 160; Boon 1946, pp. 51, 54-55; Nieburg 1946, pp. 16-17; Tóth-Ubbens in coll. cat. The Hague 1968, p. 22, no. 843; ENP VI, 1971, p. 100, no. 160; Van Miegroet 1989, pp. 230-34, 300; Cleven 1990, pp. 2-14; Härting 1995, pp. 81-51; Bruijnen 1997; Buijsen 1997; Van Suchtelen in The Hague 1997, pp. 40-41, no. 1, with earlier literature; Ainsworth 1998, pp. 207-13, 237-45
Collection catalogues
1934, p. 79, nos. 767b, 767c; 1976, p. 189, nos. A 3134, A 3135
Citation
V. Hoogland, 2010, 'Gerard David, Outer left wing of a triptych with a view in a forest, c. 1505 - c. 1515', in J.P. Filedt Kok (ed.), Early Netherlandish Paintings, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.9535
(accessed 29 March 2025 23:24:20).Figures
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fig. b
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fig. a Gerard David, Triptych with the Nativity (centre panel), donors and Sts Jerome and Leonard (wings), 1505-15. Panel transferred to canvas, 90.2 x 71.1 cm (centre panel), 90.2 x 31.4 cm (wings). New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Jules Bache collection
Footnotes
- 1 Mayer 1920, p. 97, ‘Das Triptychon ist seit Jahrhunderten im Besitz einer Navarresischen Familie’.
- 2 Note RMA.
- 3 Coll. cat. Bache 1929, unpag., reproduced.
- 4 The triptych was still intact when exhibited at the Wereldtentoonstelling in Antwerp in 1930.
- 5 Provenance reconstructed by Van Suchtelen in The Hague 1997, pp. 13, 17, 41.
- 6 London, The National Gallery, and Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum; illustrated in ENP VIb, 1971, nos. 223-24, pls. 226-27.
- 7 Bruges, Groeningemuseum; illustrated in ENP VIb, 1971, no. 222, pls. 224-25.
- 8 Bruges, Groeningemuseum; illustrated in ENP VIb, 1971, no. 161, pls. 166-67.
- 9 Genoa, Palazzo Bianco; New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Paris, Musée du Louvre; illustrated in ENP VIb, 1971, nos. 172-73, 189, 202, pls. 186, 199.
- 10 Rouen, Musée des Beaux-Arts; illustrated in ENP VIb, 1971, no. 215, pls. 218-20.
- 11 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; illustrated in ENP VIb, 1971, no. 159, pl. 161.
- 12 See Provenance, and Bruijnen 1997, pp. 13-7.
- 13 Friedländer VI, 1928, p. 143, no. 160.
- 14 Buijsen 1997, p. 27.
- 15 Cleven 1990.
- 16 In some translations of the Bible the animal in Job 39:9 is not a unicorn but a wild ox; see Härting 1995, p. 102, note 71.
- 17 Härting 1995, p. 102.
- 18 Buijsen 1997, pp. 32-38.
- 19 Bruijnen 1997, p. 12.
- 20 See Mayer 1920.
- 21 Galleria Durazzo-Pallavicini; panel, 61 x 53 cm.
- 22 Bruijnen 1997, pp. 13-21; Ainsworth 1998, pp. 241-44.
- 23 Bruges, Groeningemuseum; illustrated in ENP VIb, 1971, no. 161, pls. 166-67.
- 24 Bruijnen 1997, p. 13.